And in November, he will renew the sanctions imposed in 1979 by President Carter. Back in the 1970s, a congressional investigation found all sorts of emergency declarations still on the books, including some going back to 1933. So Congress in 1977 passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which allowed economic emergencies to be declared only for a year at a time, thus requiring that they be reviewed annually and not just left on the books. That results in these annual renewals that are publicized in Iran as some new anti-Iranian action by Washington.
