WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday that would let Congress review any nuclear deal the U.S. reaches with Iran.
The 400-25 vote sends the measure to President Barack Obama. Arkansas' four representatives, all Republicans, voted for the measure.
The wide margin for passage was anticipated after Republican leaders decided to hold a separate vote on a bill designed to cripple the Hezbollah militant group's financial network.
After last week's 98-1 passage of the Iran measure in the Senate, the House vote on the bill, House Resolution 1191, signals a two-thirds majority of congressional support in both chambers -- enough to overcome a presidential veto.
Obama has said he supports the current legislation. Presidential spokesman Josh Earnest said again Thursday that Obama would sign the bill into law.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, backed the measure, saying it would strengthen the U.S. negotiating position with Tehran.
"This now injects Congress as an important backstop," Royce said. "Congress will be in a much better position to judge any final agreement."
Without the Iran review measure, Royce said, "The president can sign a bad deal and we, the United States Congress, are left to read about in the papers."
Nineteen Republicans and six Democrats opposed the measure.
Many conservatives aligned with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who pressed unsuccessfully for additional restrictions and oversight, and was the lone no vote in the Senate.
In opposing the measure, those conservatives paired with liberal Democrats, who worry the legislation could interfere with talks they support as a diplomatic solution. They argued that Congress already possessed tools to provide oversight of the administration's actions.
One opponent, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said the measure ties the president's hands and "sends the signal to the international community that the U.S. is setting the stage to vote down the final agreement."
"I don't believe we should make this deal stillborn, in the crib, even before it is about to emerge," Ellison said.
House Republican leaders decided to fend off potential last-minute debate by pairing the Iran vote with the measure on Hezbollah's financial network, HR2297, which passed 423-0.
The Iran bill represented a compromise by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the panel's top Democrat. The deal reduced from 60 days to as few as 30 days the time for Congress to review a final deal with Iran.
The bill also stipulates that if senators disapprove of the deal, Obama would lose his current power to waive certain economic penalties Congress has imposed on Iran.
The bill would require Congress to pass a resolution of disapproval to reject the deal, an action that Obama almost certainly would veto. Congress then would have to muster votes from two-thirds of each chamber to override the veto.
A framework agreement with Iran, announced April 2 by the U.S., the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany and Russia would curb the Islamic Republic's ability to enrich uranium in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Negotiators are working to complete the deal before a June 30 deadline.
There was concern that some House Republicans would push for amendments to the bill similar to efforts that were scuttled in the Senate, such as language requiring Iran to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of any nuclear deal.
The Hezbollah bill's sponsors include Royce and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. A version passed 404-0 last year.
The measure calls for the use of "all available diplomatic, legislative, and executive avenues to combat the global criminal activities of Hezbollah" and its ability to fund terrorist activities. Iran is a strong backer of the Lebanese Hezbollah, which was designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. in the mid-1990s.
Those avenues include sanctioning Hezbollah's foreign financial assets and going after its international narcotics-trafficking rings.
The bill directs the administration to report to Congress within about four months on whether Hezbollah meets the criteria of a transnational criminal organization and a drug kingpin. That would give U.S. law enforcement officials another tool to for cracking down on Hezbollah's terrorist activities.
$611.9 billion defense bill
Also Thursday, the House considered a defense policy bill that authorizes U.S. military spending, with a final vote expected today. Obama has threatened to veto the House bill, which historically has gotten overwhelming bipartisan support.
House Speaker John Boehner chided Democrats for pulling their support for the bill.
"I think it's downright shameful that they are even contemplating turning back on the American troops, especially those [Democrats] on the Armed Services Committee who voted for this bill in committee."
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi's office quickly responded, saying Boehner was among 160 Republicans who voted against the defense authorization bill in 2010. That was the year that the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" -- the law that barred gay and bisexual individuals from openly serving in the military -- was added to the bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.
"Regardless of whether we support the NDAA or not, we all support the brave men and women of our military who defend this country," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. "Speaker Boehner is only implying otherwise in order to score cheap partisan points. Shame on him."
Overall, the House bill authorizes $515 billion in spending for national defense and another $89.2 billion for the emergency war-fighting fund for a total of $604.2 billion. Another $7.7 billion is mandatory defense spending that doesn't get authorized by Congress. That means the bill would provide the entire $611.9 billion desired by the president, but he still has threatened to veto it.
He and Democratic lawmakers oppose the way the committee skirted automatic spending caps imposed by Congress in 2011 by increasing defense spending by padding the emergency war-fighting fund, which is not affected by the caps. Democrats argue that the GOP wants to ignore those spending caps when it comes to funding the military, but wants to adhere to them when it comes to other domestic spending.
The same approach to authorizing defense spending was taken Thursday on the Senate side, and drew the same opposition from Democrats.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 22-4 to authorize $523 billion in base funding for the Defense Department and the national security programs of the Energy Department as well as an additional $90.2 billion for the emergency war-fighting fund.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, said the measure also included bipartisan language requiring Obama to submit a detailed proposal to Congress on his plan to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer detainees to U.S. facilities. That plan would take effect only if approved by Congress, he said.
The measure would also authorize $300 million for the Ukraine government to buy weapons and equipment for its war against pro-Russia separatists.
Information for this article was contributed by Billy House and Kathleen Miller of Bloomberg News; by Lisa Mascaro of Tribune News Service; and by Deb Riechmann and Alan Fram of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/15/2015