House bucks Obama with Iran sanctions vote

“Iran is increasingly cut off from the global financial system; significant amounts of Iranian oil are coming off the market; and firms all over the world are divesting themselves of business with Iran.”

{mosads}The bill from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) has been scheduled for a floor vote on Wednesday or Thursday. It has 374 co-sponsors and cleared Royce’s committee unanimously in May.

Royce and others say Iran is getting closer to acquiring the technology to build a nuclear weapon and that the United States should toughen, not loosen, sanctions. His bill would extend existing sanctions to human rights violators, require other countries to further reduce Iranian oil imports, penalize people who engage in significant commercial trade with Iran and impose greater shipping sanctions while limiting Iran’s access to overseas currency reserves.

The Senate is not expected to take any further action on Iran before September.

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