Prohibiting Future Ransom Payments to Iran Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in opposition to this bill.

Let me start by underscoring my respect and admiration for our chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and my friend, Ed Royce. It is unusual that we debate a Foreign Affairs bill subject to a rule because the vast majority of our legislation is the product of strong bipartisan collaboration.

So I regret that the bill we are debating today doesn't have support across the aisle, and all you need to do is read the bill's title to know what I mean. There were 50 Republican sponsors and no Democrats. We really weren't part of putting this bill together. And again and again in the bill, we see the word ``ransom.''

Now, I know that some of my colleagues and the chairman believe sincerely that the latest payment to Iran was a ransom. I happen to disagree. I think holding Iran's money until Iran released American detainees was a pretty shrewd bargain. Whatever we think, using the word ``ransom'' turns this bill into a political hot button, a poke in the eye of the administration.

Now, I don't like or trust the Government of Iran. I voted against the Iran bill last year, and it is no secret that I have some differences with the President's Iran policy. But I do know that pushing legislation just to embarrass the White House won't help to resolve those differences we might have.

I also question the bill's focus on cash. Look, I share the view that any sum dumped into Iran's bank account may be put to bad use. But, Mr. Chairman, I would have that concern whether the money got to Iran via cash, check, wire transfer, or stacks of gold bars. Money is money; it is fungible. We have no way of knowing what happens to it once it is in Iran's hands. We can guess, but we have no way of knowing.

Does that irk me? Sure, it does. Iran's leaders do all sorts of things that irk me and, more important, that make the world less safe. But whether we like it or not, the payment we are talking about was Iran's money. We paid it as part of a settlement under the Algiers Accords, which the United States signed in 1981. We have been making payments like this for decades--under Ronald Reagan, under George H.W. Bush, and now under Barack Obama--and in that time, regardless of how we sent the money, we haven't had any control over what Iran does with it. I agree, it is deeply frustrating because we know what Iran is up to.

We can't control that, Mr. Chairman. But there are some things we can control. For instance, I agree with Chairman Royce that the way we found out about this payment gave Congress short shrift. We did receive a briefing, but we did not learn how and when the payment was going forward. Congress can, and should, make sure that happens with respect to future payments. That is what my amendment does, which I am going to introduce.

In my view, that is what the Committee on Foreign Affairs would have done if we had advanced this bill according to our normal bipartisan process. Again, as I said, there was no input from the minority. It comes to the floor with 50 Republican cosponsors and not a single Democrat. I am not able to support the bill because, to me, it puts political concerns ahead of our legitimate concerns. I share the chairman's feelings about Iran. I don't think there is a dime's worth of difference between our feelings with Iran. It is simply a matter of what is the best way to go about doing it. I don't think this is the best way.

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Mr. ENGEL. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, let me say this: None of us likes the Government of Iran. None of us likes the idea of making payments to Iran, but this bill imposes a blanket ban on most forms of payment of our international obligations.

Let me just say that the Algiers Accords, which were signed 35 or 40 years ago, President Ronald Reagan, and President George H.W. Bush did the same thing that President Obama is doing now by making payments to Iran. There are things that gall us, but there are international obligations that we really have to follow through with.

It wasn't a matter and isn't a matter of giving money for hostages. We know this was part of a larger transaction. In fact, it was Iran's money that we held back; and we didn't release their money until we knew that those hostages were free. So I think it was pretty shrewd on our part to wait and use their money to hold back until the hostages were released.

Again, I think the Government of Iran is a terrible government. I think there are lots of things we could and should be doing together to put the skids on them. And we will be developing legislation together. But this legislation, to me, is more about poking a finger in the eye of the President and the eye of the administration by using words like ``ransom'' and saying all kind of things.

That is not really what we should be doing. We should be working together to find bipartisan solutions to check Iran, which nobody here will say is a good actor--certainly not me--one of the worst actors in the world, a leading sponsor of terrorism. But the United States has to fulfill international obligations, and we will do that, and we will do it at the same time we are countering Iran and making sure that it doesn't get away with its aggression and all the other horrific things the Government of Iran does. So I have to oppose this bill.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, let me, first of all, say I appreciate Chairman Royce's consideration of my feedback during the markup, and I know he is well-intentioned with this measure.

As he mentioned, I believe that the underlying legislation was too broad. It could have been interpreted as a ban on any payment, including wire transfers, checks, or cash. This does improve the bill.

I don't like sending money to Iran, but if we ban any payments to Iran, we would be violating our obligations under the Algiers Accords. So, the specific changes in this bill narrow the banned payments to cash and precious metals.

To me, cash is a red herring. No matter how we pay money to Iran, whether cash or wire transfer, once the money gets to an Iranian bank account, it is impossible for us to track it. We can imagine how Iranians use it, but we can't know for certain.

Whether cash or wire transfer, we can't prevent them from doing the terrible things they do. So let's not talk about the form of the payment when I think our real concern is that we don't like what Iran does with money that it legally obtains.

Additionally, my understanding is that the settlement in question required an immediate payment. So as much as it might be counterintuitive, electronic wire payments to Iran have taken months to complete, while the cash option met the terms of the settlement.

It is galling. It is nothing we like to do, but, again, we signed an agreement called the Algiers Accords, and every President, in terms of giving money back to Iran, which was legally their money, has used the rules of the Accords. President Obama is not the first President to do that. As I pointed out before, both President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush did it as well.

It takes a long time to make a wire transfer to Iran because U.S. sanctions against Iran are so powerful and so comprehensive that there are virtually no banking relationships between the United States and Iran. Therefore, a wire transfer was not an option; it would have taken too long. So in order to abide by the settlement, the U.S. Government had to make an immediate payment.

So, Mr. Chairman, that is the reason I will have to oppose this amendment, even though I appreciate that the chairman is seeking to clarify the bill and make it better.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me respond just to some of the things that we have heard from some of our colleagues.

This was not a ransom payment. This was payment for a 30-year-old claim over a weapons shipment that was never delivered, and the United States actually got a pretty good deal in the settlement. We might have had to pay more interest if we hadn't settled and the claim had gone to judgment at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal.

When the prisoners' plane was sitting on the tarmac, the administration, as I mentioned before, held up the settlement money. They couldn't find the mother and wife of one of the prisoners, Jason Rezaian from The Washington Post. Administration officials feared that, as Mr. Rezaian was being released, the Iranians were detaining his family, and this was unacceptable. The administration leveraged the settlement money, holding it up until Mr. Rezaian's family could be found and the prisoners could leave the country.

Leveraging the money, money that belonged to Iran in the first place and was going to be paid to Iran under the Algiers Accords, was smart. Can you imagine if the administration had paid the settlement anyway, even if the prisoner release was stalled? That didn't happen.

Some people are saying that the administration made payments to Iran via wire transfer before and after the ransom, so why did the ransom have to be cash? Well, the payments that were made via wire transfer before and after the settlement payments were months in the making. It takes a long time to make a wire transfer to Iran because U.S. sanctions against Iran are so powerful and so comprehensive, as I mentioned before, that there are virtually no banking relationships between the U.S. and Iran. It takes a long time to wire money to Iran.

But the requirement of the settlement was that the payment had to be immediate; therefore, a wire transfer, instead of cash, was not an option. It would have taken too long.

Let me say this. I said it before and I will say it again. Money is fungible. Whether cash, wire transfers, checks, gold, or any other form of payment, once it gets to Iran, we have no way of tracking it. So I believe this debate about cash is beside the point. Money can be moved, be used for nefarious purposes once it gets to Iran, no matter what the method.

But when we are going to make a payment to Iran pursuant to a settlement or a judgment, Congress should know about it, and I am offended that we didn't know about it. And that is why, when I introduce my amendment a little bit later on, we are going to require that Congress be informed of any kinds of transfer, not only to Iran, but to any other rogue nation, at least 5 days before.

So we should have greater oversight of these payments. I agree with that. But I don't think that we should worry about whether it was cash or some other method.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. ENGEL. Let me say, first of all, on the face of it, the amendment makes sense. It is already U.S. policy not to pay ransom.

On June 24, 2015, President Obama issued a directive:

It is the United States' policy to deny hostage-takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession.

Codifying this policy though, without giving the President any flexibility, is not what we should be doing. There is no waiver in this bill. Things like this usually have waivers so the President--any President, this President and future Presidents--would have flexibility.

But again, this whole issue, I believe, is a red herring. The United States did not pay ransom for the four Americans detained in Iran. We were paying Iran back its own money, money it had given us to buy weapons before the Iranian Revolution.

I have never heard of paying a ransom using the captor's own money. It is galling, but it is not a ransom. Every mention of ransom is an attempt to politicize this issue and criticize the President, and that is not what we should be doing here. We should be putting our heads together and finding a solution.

These issues are too important to get caught in partisan fights. It is not how we do things on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, let me say, first of all, that the Iranian regime is a bad regime. They hold American prisoners before we paid them the money, and they will hold prisoners after. It has no basis whatsoever. It is easy to put out the word ``ransom,'' but this was not a ransom.

It is a reprehensible regime. They do reprehensible things. The United States fulfills its obligations. Again, the Algiers Accords, by the logic that this should not have been done, then when George H.W. Bush did it, it shouldn't have been done; when Ronald Reagan did it, it shouldn't have been done. They did it because we maintain our obligations in the United States.

So any of us can get up and give a litany of things we don't like about the Iranian Government. Believe me, I take second to none when it comes to that. But the United States needs to fulfill its obligations, and the Iranian regime needs to be checked. But it is not a ransom, and that is just the problem.

By calling it a ransom, by calling names, by trying to poke a finger in front of the eyes of the administration, we don't get to the real issue. The real issue, which I hope we will get to later, is, again, to give Congress notice before this happens. That is the issue. To just say ransom and throw that word out, anybody can do that; but this wasn't a ransom.

We are fulfilling our obligations under the accords that we signed that each American President facing the same type of thing has sent money to Iran because we fulfill our obligations. It doesn't matter from which party the President comes. President Obama did nothing more than other Presidents have done before him.

I oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate the sentiment behind what the gentleman is seeking to do. Of course we want to punish anyone who is unjustly holding American citizens behind bars, but there are so many potential unintended consequences in this amendment, I simply don't know where to start.

First, the amendment requires sanctions against any Iranian who unjustly detains a U.S. citizen. But the term ``unjustly detained'' is not defined.

So who defines it? Does the White House? The Congress? Iran? It is very difficult.

Secondly, as anyone who has worked on sanctions policy knows--and we work on sanctions a lot on the Foreign Affairs Committee--it is typically not the use of sanctions that encourages the change in behavior; it is the threat of sanctions that encourages the change in behavior. That means that the Iranians have to believe that we will implement sanctions against them, but the President has to be given flexibility to use it or suspend it if they do change their behavior.

This is impossible under this amendment. The President has no flexibility, no waiver, no termination authority, none of the typical details that compels regimes to change their behavior.

So let me say, because of that, I encourage all Members to oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch), our colleague and the ranking member of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I think everybody knows I am from New York, and, frankly, I don't need anyone lecturing me about 9/ 11. That is a pain in my heart that I will live with for the rest of my life. So I think that any reference to 9/11 from this bill is just totally off base.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I don't like the idea of shipping payments to Iran or any government hostile to the United States, but we have to abide by our obligations whether we like it or not. We also don't want to tie our hands, which is what this amendment would do.

This measure would impose a permanent and blanket prohibition on most forms of money transfers, not just cash, whether made directly or indirectly through third parties. It would preempt all existing provisions of law.

We have no idea what sort of consequences could come with something like this. We may face diplomatic or strategic opportunities that would require quick action. But this provision is all-encompassing, regardless of circumstance. And, again, there is no waiver for unforeseen situations. There are always waivers for the President in bills like this because the President can best decide what unforeseen situations there are. And, again, it is any President from any party.

So I think this amendment would take us down a wrong path. I am going to oppose it, and I urge all Members to do the same.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I am offering this amendment because I do think there is a lot of common ground when it comes to this issue.

My concern is that the administration really did not give Congress its due with respect to this payment. We were told about the payment but not notified about how this transition would take place, and that is just not right, especially when it is somewhat unusual.

My amendment would require the administration, and future administrations, to notify Congress at least 5 days in advance of any settlement agreement or payment to Iran, to other countries on the state sponsors of terrorism list, and to North Korea, and it provides appropriate oversight on the claims that are remaining at the tribunal.

It is straightforward, and it ensures that Congress' role in foreign policymaking is not overlooked. I don't think anyone here disagrees with that idea.

My amendment gets to the heart of it. I think it would allow this bill to sail through the House with strong support on both sides. It leaves aside the areas that are sure to eventually derail the underlying measure--talk of ransom again and again, or to focus exclusively on cash payments. We are not going to agree on these areas. Putting them front and center guarantees that this bill has no path forward.

So let's put those issues aside and advance legislation that addresses all our concerns. That is what we do every day on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I hope my amendment will help get our committee's work back on track.

Again, I ask all Members to support the amendment. I don't think anyone can disagree with the fact that the administration, or future administrations, give Congress enough time so that we will hear about payments, we will hear about transactions before they are done, not while they are done or after they are done.

I ask all Members to support this amendment.

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, let me say that I appreciate my friend, Chairman Royce's words. We don't agree totally on this, but we do agree that the Iranian regime is a bad regime and they need to be checked. And I would hope that after this whole process is done, because this bill is not going to become law, that we can put our heads together and come up with something that can become law. The Iranians need to be checked, and the Congress needs to be informed and needs to be a part of the process. We are, obviously, an independent branch of government.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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