CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
June 23, 2009 – 9:12 a.m.
GOP Will Attempt to Pressure Iran Via Loan Program
By Adam Graham-Silverman, CQ Staff
A Republican effort on Tuesday to cut off U.S. loans to some companies doing business with Iran will bring Congress deeper into the fray over the U.S. response to the Iranian elections.
The amendment to the draft fiscal 2010 State and foreign operations appropriations bill will give members their first chance to vote on binding Iran policy since that country’s presidential election June 12.
Rep. Mark Steven Kirk , R-Ill., said the amendment was aimed at Reliance Industries, a large energy company based in India that reportedly has provided Iran with as much as a third of its refined petroleum. He will offer the measure when the House Appropriations Committee takes up the draft bill on Tuesday.
The House and the Senate adopted separate measures (
“This will be the first vote on a substantive issue with regard to Iran since the election imploded,” Kirk said.
Many Republicans have argued that President Obama should offer more support for the protesters and should criticize Iran’s rulers; Democrats have largely stuck by his initial decision to avoid direct criticism to avoid being blamed by the regime for the unrest, although he has more recently criticized the Iranian government as violent and unjust.
Kirk worked Monday with Nita M. Lowey , D-N.Y., chairwoman of the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, to draft language they both could support. Final details were unclear, but Kirk aims to block the U.S. Export-Import Bank from extending loan guarantees to companies that supply gasoline to Iran.
Although Iran is a large exporter of oil, it lacks refining capacity and must import as much as 40 percent of its gasoline, a situation those arguing for tougher sanctions have sought to exploit.
“As they’re shooting kids in Tehran, this is not the time to provide taxpayer funding for a facility helping [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad ease his gas shortage problem,” Kirk said.
The Export-Import Bank provides loan guarantees for companies overseas to buy U.S. goods and services. The bank has provided Reliance with two loan guarantees totaling $900 million, including a $500 million guarantee to build the world’s sixth-largest refinery in Jamnagar, India.
Kirk said the company’s role in providing a large share of Iran’s refined petroleum makes it a target. “We think it would be good for Reliance just to choose not to do business with Iran,” he said.
Potential Side Effects
Opponents say the language would do little to block gasoline imports and would end up hurting both America’s image in Iran and U.S. companies that would be penalized by the measure. Bechtel Corp. and Dow Global Technologies are involved in the refinery’s construction.
“It struck me as a little strange that we’re going to hamstring American companies in the middle of the worst recession in decades,” said Patrick Disney, legislative director at the National Iranian American Council.
The funds for the Jamnagar project have already been disbursed, but if the amendment is retroactive it could apply to that and other past transactions and potentially undermine confidence in the Export-Import Bank, critics say.
The new refinery would not provide gasoline to Iran, according to the bank, but Kirk waved that issue aside. “I think nuances like that fall on deaf ears as the situation has come apart in Iran,” he said.
He offered another reason to back his plan: “Our amendment is a go because AIPAC supports it,” he said, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a leading pro-Israel lobby.
Comments
The stink of opportunism will take long to leave my ex-party, the Republican Party. It has been taken over by little power hungry me-ists and $ greed, alas. But AIPAC I no longer think is just a pro-Israel lobby but rather a operation whose purpose is to generate anti-Semitism so American Jews will be stampeded in panic to grab their goods and move to Israel in fear of the very anti-Semitism AIPAC deliberately promotes in order to fill all those EMPTY settlements built at US taxpayer's expense. Per US Dept State a while back, the settlements were 78% empty. Israel is suffering a "REVERSE ALIYAH" as Israelis move to the West when they finish university. For MOST Jews Israel is a nice place to visit BUT NOT TO LIVE-- proof is that 80% of world's Jews are born, bred and LIVE JUST FINE in the Diaspora. By insisting that Israel be recogonized as "the nation of the Jewish people" Netayhau is implimenting Sharon's demand that any Jew who does not move to Israel by 2020 "will lose his Jewish soul." This is criminal indeed, for OUR Jews are totally a part of us Americans, as OUR teachers, OUR doctors, OUR scientists, OUR neighbors and even OUR Congressmen. Therefore the current AIPACattempt to force them to move to Israel by promoting anti-Semitism by making Jews look like a Fifth Column of a foreign state is indeed the Big Lie. Our Jews are as American as apple pie, NOT Israelis. It is Israeli officials who carry multiple passports just in case so as to have an alternative they would deny to American Jews. Israel is the land of Israeli Sabras who fought for it and built it. America, England, France Canada are as much the nations of the Diaspora Jews who contributer to these nations' wellbeing every day. AIPAC, stop trying to force them to move to Israel by promoting the very anti-Semitism that will stampede them there in fear!
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