The House passed legislation Thursday designed to crack down on Iran’s support for terrorism and development of ballistic missiles, in the wake of GOP criticism that the Obama administration is refusing to sanction the country in order to preserve the Iran nuclear agreement.
Republicans passed the bill 246-179 in one of their final votes before summer recess, and over the objections of most Democrats. Only eight Democrats voted for it.
“The goal of this bill is to call upon the president to uphold his pledge to remain vigilant and respond to Iran’s continued support for its ballistic missile program and terrorism and its human rights abuses,” Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said during debate on the House floor.
Known as the Iran Accountability Act, the bill passed along mostly-partisan lines, as Democrats argued that it would undermine the nuclear agreement. Even the most hawkish Democrats protested that Republicans had produced a flawed bill because they skipped the regular Foreign Affairs Committee process when developing the legislation, which is one of three Iran-related bills the House is voting on this week.
But Republicans brought the bill to the floor after months of negotiations with Democrats and the President Obama’s team failed to produce a consensus.
Royce complained that President Obama has refused to work with Republicans to develop anti-Iran legislation ever since the Iran deal was struck. “For the White House, it is accommodation of Iran at all costs. And that includes essentially giving the Supreme Leader the veto pen over steps Congress might press the administration to take, so on this, we’re stuck,” he said.
New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, faulted GOP leaders for bringing the bill directly to the floor without going through the standard committee process.
“Congress could speak with a unified voice on these issues, but not with the bill we’re considering today,” he said. “This isn’t a serious bill. It would force the United States to violate our obligations under the nuclear deal.”
Engel and his colleagues argued that the bill might also “fracture the very delicate international coalition” that is supposed to impose snap-back sanctions on Iran if the regime violates the nuclear deal. “I guess that’s something that happens when amateurs write a bill without any foreign policy background,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., another member of the foreign affairs panel, said on the floor.
Royce denied that the bill would undermine the Iran deal, and said it would actually force President Obama’s team to fulfill promises made to Congress during the Iran deal debate last year that they would crack down on Iran’s support for terrorism and other destabilizing actions.
“This goes to the issue of what we were told, what was in the talking points on the floor of the House in terms of how this deal would be implemented and that it would not impact our ability to stop this ballistic missile testing by Iran and these other abuses,” he said.
