New Iran Sanctions Legislation Bill

The House and Senate conferees have come to an agreement regarding new Iran sanctions legislation.

It is expected that the House and Senate will both pass the bill this week before adjourning for their summer recess. President Obama is likely to sign the bill into law.

As summarized by Senator Tim Johnson, the 147 page bill provides for sanctions on anyone who:

• works in Iran's petroleum, petrochemical, or natural gas sector;
• provides goods, services, infrastructure, or technology to Iran's oil and natural gas sector, including financial services, consulting, and maintenance & repair;
• conducts oil-for-gold or other swap transactions with Iran;
• insures or re-insures investments in Iran's oil sector;
• engages in joint ventures with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC);
• provides insurance or re-insurance to the National Iranian Oil Company or the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC);
• helps Iran evade oil sanctions through reflagging, etc;
• sells, leases, or otherwise provides oil tankers to Iran, unless from a country that is significantly reducing its oil purchases;
• transports crude oil from Iran, concealing the origin of Iranian crude; or transports refined petroleum products to Iran; sanctioned vessels could be prevented from landing at a port in the U.S. for up to two years.
• provides special financial messaging services to designated Iranian banks, or those who enable such activity;
• engages in uranium mining with Iran anywhere in the world. 

The bill aims to prevent Iran from repatriating any of the revenue it receives from the sale of its crude oil. It also prevents the purchasing of Iranian sovereign debt after the date of enactment.

The bill expands sanctions against Iranian and Syrian officials for human rights abuses facilitated by computer and network disruption, monitoring, and tracking by those governments.

The sale of Iranian crude oil will be sharply limited to only countries that have agreed to significantly reduce their purchases of Iranian crude, toward a complete cessation of these activities.