Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge passage of my bill, H.R. 5613, the Sanctions Lists Harmonization Act. Mr. Speaker, sanctions are a critical tool in America's foreign policy toolkit, and that has been the case really since the end of World War II. Unfortunately, the U.S. faces significant challenges in coordinating its sanction policy to support our national security objectives. For example, entities that we sanction in the U.S. are not similarly sanctioned by our allies in Europe, even when our policies are aligned. We spend a significant amount of time and effort coordinating these actions to target actors like Iran and other malign actors, even when we are all rowing in the same direction. Mr. Speaker, it is often even worse than that. We don't even coordinate within our own government. Under current law, our Federal agencies are not required to communicate with each other when foreign entities are added to their sanctions lists. {time} 1815 For example, if the Department of Defense has concerns and they communicate those concerns, an entity may be denied an export license by the Department of Commerce but then still allowed to conduct banking transactions regulated by Treasury. Mr. Speaker, there are many other examples, but at the very least, our agencies should proactively notify and coordinate with one another to maximize the penalties to these bad actors when it makes sense.…”