WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman said they have resolved differences on legislation to penalize companies selling gasoline to Iran and added new banking prohibitions.
In addition to targeting providers of refined petroleum products and services to Iran, the measure under consideration would allow the Obama administration to bar financial violators from the U.S. banking system.
“The act would present foreign banks doing business with blacklisted Iranian entities a stark choice,” Democrats Dodd and Berman said in a statement Monday.
The legislation is intended to add to sanctions adopted by the United Nations Security Council earlier this month restricting financial transactions, tightening an arms embargo and authorizing cargo seizures. The U.S. invoked the U.N. resolution last week in leveling sanctions against an Iranian bank, shipping companies and elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps it accused of involvement in nuclear and missile development.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the measure a “strong bill” that would strengthen “a multilateral strategy to isolate and pressure Iran.”
In a statement, Gibbs said the Obama administration “will continue to work with the Congress” on passing a bill.
While Iran is the second biggest crude oil producer in the Middle East, it depends on imports to fill domestic demand for gasoline because of limited refining capacity.The gap may shrink. Iran aims to be self-sufficient in gasoline production within two years as upgrades to refineries are finished, deputy petroleum minister Shahnazi Zadeh said last month.
Under the congressional measure, violators would have to cease business with designated Iranian enterprises “or be denied critical access to America’s financial system,” Dodd and Berman said. The measure targets financial institutions doing business with certain Iranian banks or with the Revolutionary Guard, a branch of the country’s military with extensive business interests.
In its June 16 sanctions action, the U.S. targeted two Iranian companies it said are subsidiaries of the guard’s engineering arm.
Other lawmakers on a joint panel must still review the proposed House-Senate legislative agreement.
“Our legislation will provide the administration with powerful new tools to press Iran to change course, including a full range of tough new energy and financial sanctions,” said Dodd of Connecticut and Berman of California in their statement.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 06/22/2010