The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday UNANIMOUSLY passed legislation that will give Congress the opportunity to review and possibly reject any nuclear deal the Big Six reaches with Iran.
President Obama said he would veto the original bill introduced by Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the chairman of the committee. But overnight before the vote, Corker and the senior Democrat on the committee, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, negotiated a compromise—something not heard very often in today’s polarized Congress.
Obama reviewed the compromise and endorsed it Tuesday morning.
On Tuesday afternoon, the committee—comprised of 10 Republicans and nine Democrats—brushed aside all proposed amendments and approved the compromise bill 19-0, avoiding the threat of a veto and also producing—for a change—legislation with very broad support.
Lost in the commotion was the fact that just a few weeks ago, the legislation everyone was talking about was a bill to impose yet more sanctions on Iran every month for the rest of this year if no agreement was reached between the Big Six and Iran. No one is even discussing that bill any more.
The compromise version of Corker’s bill marginally shortens the time Congress has in which to review any agreement and softens a provision requiring that Obama report every 180 days on any acts of terrorism supported by Iran. Those were the major objections the White House had.
The original bill gave Congress 60 days in which to review the bill. The revised bill gives Congress 30 days for review, with 12 days of a waiver ban added if Congress passes legislation when the president will decide whether or not to veto it, and another 10 days added if the president vetoes the legislation and Congress needs time to vote on an override. If the negotiations are delayed and no deal is reached until after July 9, then the original 60-day review period will apply.
It isn’t clear that these times really make any difference. US Secretary of State John Kerry has said it will probably take Iran four to 12 months to complete what it must first do to trigger the ending of any sanctions.