Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey may propose measures to bolster an Iranian sanctions bill at Thursday's Senate Banking Committee hearing, during which senators will discuss the sanctions bill sponsored by Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, and Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat,
The Washington Free Beacon reports.
Toomey will ask that a deal with Iran require the "full dismantlement of its nuclear program, something the Obama administration admits it is not seeking to accomplish in talks," according to the Free Beacon.
Many lawmakers worry that the administration is growing increasingly weaker with its position on an Iranian nonproliferation deal.
Departing from the Obama administration proposal that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium, Toomey's amendment would require "the president to certify that Iran relinquishes enrichment and reprocessing capabilities and facilities … and a heavy water reactor and [nuclear] production plant at Arak," according to a draft version of the measure reviewed by the Free Beacon.
Tehran would also have to relinquish "any new weapons components and technology so that the government of Iran is precluded from a nuclear breakout capability and prevented from pursuing both uranium and plutonium pathways to a nuclear weapon," according to the amendment draft.
Toomey wants a final sanctions deal to be subject to congressional oversight via an up or down vote on the Senate floor.
Menendez, an ardent advocate of a hard-line position with Iran on its nuclear proliferation, announced this week that he and nine of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate would delay their support for a sanctions bill until after the March deadline for negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries — the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France and Germany,
according to Bloomberg View.
The announcement was a major change of play by Menendez, who along with Kirk and others has been a vocal critic of the administration's proposed sanctions.
In spite of the delay, the Kirk-Menendez bill, which automatically increases economic sanctions against Iran at the end of June if Tehran fails to agree to a deal, is still expected to pass in the Senate Banking Committee,
according to The Hill.
Last year, Menendez came out in favor of a "diplomatic insurance policy" with Tehran in the form of additional sanctions.
"Frankly, it's productive for the Iranians to know that Americans will stand by a deal we make because the Congress will have voted to make it effective," a congressional source told the Free Beacon. "And if you cut a bad deal that Congress doesn't think is fair, the U.S. can come back and re-sanction Iran."