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Floor Speech

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Mr. HAGERTY. In the aftermath of the barbaric massacre committed by Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas, there has been significant attention given in the U.S. Senate to the $6 billion the Biden administration unfroze as part of a ransom deal with Iran. This is understandable. Because money is fungible, the combination of waivers and nonenforcement of sanctions has enabled Iran to spend billions of dollars bankrolling terrorists, including Hamas.

The $6 billion was just the latest installment of an enormous windfall the Iranian regime has enjoyed ever since Joe Biden took office. But not enough attention has been paid to the way Congress has willingly abdicated its responsibility and allowed the executive branch to get away with a reckless policy of appeasement toward Iran.

According to many recent news reports this year, the Biden administration was negotiating an unwritten agreement with Iran in which the United States would relieve billions of dollars of sanctions on Iran in return for a number of Iranian promises.

One of the architects of this strategy of pursuing an informal and unwritten agreement with Iran as part of a broader strategy of appeasing the Iranians was none other than Rob Malley. Rob Malley was placed on unpaid leave by the State Department in June. He has had his security clearance suspended amid a probe into the possibility that he mishandled classified material. The results have been catastrophic. Iran has received tens of billions of dollars in revenue it would not have received had sanctions been properly enforced.

Iran has continued to obstruct nuclear inspection efforts, and its proxies have continued engaging in terrorism across the region, most recently and most tragically in Israel.

Furthermore, rewarding hostage-taking by paying $6 billion for the potential release of five American hostages, as the Biden administration recently did, is just one element of this unwritten agreement. It only incentivizes more hostage-taking of U.S. citizens abroad, both by Iran and by other adversaries.

To that point, as of now, it appears that Iran-backed Hamas is holding 13 American citizens hostage in Gaza. Let me be clear. I believe the Biden administration's Iran policies are deeply misguided and threaten the security of Americans and of our partners and allies in the Middle East.

But I am not here today to debate the pros and cons of resurrecting the Iran deal or any specific agreement the Biden administration has made with Iran. The massacre in Israel last week should have settled that debate; though I suspect we will likely continue to have that debate in the months ahead. Rather, I am here today to argue for preserving the role of Congress amid concern that the Biden administration has continuously refused to enforce sanctions as part of a gradually unfolding agreement with Iran and is doing so in such a manner that is designed to circumvent its legal obligation to submit an agreement to revive the Iran nuclear deal to Congress for review and for an up-or-down vote.

When President Obama pursued the original Iran nuclear deal, his administration blatantly disregarded its constitutional duty to submit the agreement as a treaty requiring the advice and consent of two- thirds of the Senate. In response, Congress passed a law known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, by a vote of 99 to 1. In brief, the INARA law says that if the United States and Iran make any agreement related to Iran's nuclear program, the White House must submit it for congressional review and potential up-or-down votes in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The nearly unanimous bipartisan passage of INARA by the Senate reflected the Senators' bipartisan frustration that the executive branch was ignoring the Constitution and trying to circumvent Congress on such an important matter. And yet since taking office, the Biden administration has disregarded its legal obligations under INARA, and the U.S. Congress has allowed this administration to get away with it.

If the multitude of reports are accurate, the Biden administration was intentionally avoiding calling its unfolding agreement with Iran an official agreement. That was an effort to, again, sidestep congressional approval that is required under INARA. In early 2021, I was concerned that this might happen, so I introduced the Iran Sanctions Relief Act, or ISRRA, in the 117th Congress and reintroduced it in the 118th Congress.

As a backup to INARA, my bill requires congressional review and an up-or-down vote on any Presidential waiver of Iran sanctions, whether that is labeled as an agreement or not.

My vote borrows a provision from the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, that overwhelmingly passed Congress back in 2017. The CAATSA provision allows for congressional review and an up-or-down vote on any Presidential waiver of Russian sanctions. My bill takes, word for word, that same provision and applies it to any Presidential waiver of Iran sanctions.

This is important because any new agreement to revive the Iran deal will require, once again, the executive branch to waive Iran sanctions.

Additionally, in light of reports that the $6 billion the Biden administration unfroze was part of the larger unwritten and informal agreement with Iran, Congress would have had the opportunity to object before the money was unfrozen had my bill had the force of law.

In other words, my bill protects the role of Congress as the executive branch continues to ignore its legal obligations and refuses to submit a new agreement to the Senate and to the House. So far, 41 Senators have cosponsored the Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act. This number is significant because 41 Senators would be more than enough to deny the Senate's advice and consent if the executive branch actually followed the Constitution and presented a new Iran agreement to the Senate as a treaty.

The House companion to this bill has passed through the House Foreign Affairs Committee with bipartisan support. We must protect the first branch of government from an executive branch that seeks to encroach it or to ignore it.

2210 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, I would welcome the opportunity to work with my colleague Senator Murphy on sanctions policy, sanctions policies that make sense, but I would say this. If this policy is good enough for CAATSA in Russia, why wouldn't it be good enough for Iran?

The Senate has already passed CAATSA. I have used the exact language. I would also like to say this. If it is true that this administration is not waiving sanctions and is not entering an agreement, they should have no difficulty with this level of review. I don't believe that is the case.

And I also would like to address the accusations, I should say, leveled against the policy in the last administration after the withdrawal of the JCPOA. Iran never stopped their nuclear program. Israel, in a very brave and courageous raid, proved that they were continuing on that path.

As part of my prior job as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, it was my responsibility to get Japan to stop buying Iranian crude. I was successful at that after many rounds of negotiation. We cut Iran's fund flows down to a trickle. That starved Iran's ability to fund its proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, it was widely reported in the media that Hamas and Hezbollah were going broke.

That all changed when the policy of appeasement came back in 2021. By avoiding sanctions, by not enforcing sanctions, the estimates are as high as $80 billion of fresh illicit oil revenues that have entered Iran's coffers. We know about the payment that was allowed by Iraq to Iran by this administration. Senator Cotton just addressed this and the $6 billion that has received so much scrutiny in the media just recently.

All of this has enriched Iran. All of this has put Iran in a better position to fund its proxies and fuel them, and I think all of this is part of a very misguided policy of appeasement.

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