A House panel working on legislation to stop Boeing sales of aircraft to Iran became tense Wednesday as a top Democrat questioned Republicans’ patriotism.
Rep. Maxine Waters, the Californian who is the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said members of the panel backing the bills are being unpatriotic in undermining President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
“This attempt with all of these bills to undermine that — I think it’s unpatriotic, yes I do,” Waters said.
The committee was marking up three pieces of legislation, supported by both Republicans and Democrats, to deny the required authorizations for sales of aircraft to Iran and blocking financing assistance for sales of aircraft to the Islamic Republic from the Export-Import Bank.
Republicans view the measures as necessary to stop a pending deal for Boeing to sell Iran $17 billion of commercial aircraft that they believe could be used for terrorism.
“Congress has not received sufficient guarantees that any aircraft sold pursuant to the agreement would not be used for military purposes,” Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling said, citing the fact that Iranian commercial aircraft have been used to facilitate Hezbollah and terrorism in Syria in the recent past.
Hensarling said lawmakers “value American lives and, I hope and trust, Israeli lives.”
But Waters criticized the legislation as congressional interference in Obama’s negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran.
“I raise questions about patriotism,” she said, “and for those who think I’m talking about them, then you can deal with that any way you want to deal with it.”
