International Emergency Economic Powers Enhancement Act

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill, and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, IEEPA, has over the years enabled the United States on various occasions to impose significant economic sanctions and limitations on terrorists, terrorist groups and their supporters, on financiers and on some of the worst rogue regimes in the world. It has allowed three Presidents to keep the U.S. dual-use export control system in operation against the efforts of states like Iran and North Korea to require sensitive dual-use technology and equipment.

IEEPA has accomplished this goal, even though Congress has been unable to reauthorize the long-expired Export Administration Act, and I hope that later in this Congress we do reauthorize the Export Administration Act. That act was the original basis for the system of export control which is now handled through IEEPA.

Immediately after 9/11, IEEPA authority was used to freeze the assets of terrorist, terrorist organizations and their supporters and to hobble the international terrorist network that sought and still seeks to kill and maim innocent Americans. Yet the penalties for violating IEEPA's provisions are lighter than they should be. Send $1 million as a gift to Osama bin Laden and you get as a maximum penalty a $50,000 fine and 10 years in prison under the act. The same is true for unlawful exports of sensitive commercial technology, equipment and components that have military applications that are controlled for national security purposes.

If you send a milling machine for shaping nuclear warhead cores to either Iran or North Korea, the same maximum fine and prison terms under the act apply.

This bill increases the penalties to a level that I think is consistent with the importance of making sure that Americans do not, whether for ideological reasons or financial gain, deliberately violate our efforts to control terrorism and to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

S. 1612 increases civil penalties from $50,000 up to $250,000, or to an amount that is twice the amount of the transaction that is the basis of the violation with respect to which the penalty is imposed. It also increases criminal penalties for willful violations from $50,000 up to $1 million and/or imprisonment for not more than 20 years. This increase in penalties is appropriate given the importance of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to our national security. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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