Tuesday
Apr282009
Bi-partisan Bill Gives Obama More Power Over Iran Sanctions
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 3:07PM
By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service
Liberals and Conservatives stood together at a Senate press conference today to discuss the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act.
Senator Evan Bayh (R-Ind.) author of the bill, along with Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Senator Jon Kyl (D-Ind.), said that bi-partisanship had been achieved on this bill because of the “critical importance of this issue.”
The purpose of the legislation, which expands on the Iran Sanction of 1996, Lieberman said is, “to empower President Obama...by providing him with the explicit authority to target Iran’s achilles economic heel, which is its dependence on imports of petroleum...most notably gasoline.”
Lieberman accused previous legislation of being “quite ambiguous” and said that this legislation would “eliminate” that ambiguity. The new proposal would provide the President with a “powerful new weapon to use in the negotiations with Iran,” said Lieberman. Adding it is up to President Obama to decide, “when, where and against whom to use it.”
Bayh said the bill would help to “strengthen the President’s outreach” to Iran. Adding “if events continue go as they are currently going, then at some point during the next two to four years Iran will have a nuclear weapon”. This would have a “destabilizing” effect on the entire world,” said Bayh. This bill, he said, “gives us our best opportunity to avoid that outcome without the resort to military force.”
Kyl said the bill gives the President the tool to “stop companies who continue to sell refined gasoline to Iran or provide refining capacity from doing business in the United States or through the American banking systems.”
“In effect what we are saying to the few companies in the world who provide this refined gasoline to Iran is, ‘You can either do business in our $13 trillion economy with us, or you can do business with Iran with its $250 billion economy, but you can’t do both,’” said Kyl.
In closing Lieberman said, “this is important legislation introduced at a critical time whose consequences for the people of America, Iran, Israel and the Arab world are going to be quite serious.” Adding that he hoped this bill would make it “more likely” for the “diplomatic engagements” between President Obama and the Irani government to succeed and that “they will peacefully abandon their nuclear ambitions.”
Twenty-five U.S. Senators, from both parties, have currently signed their name as a co-sponsors to this piece of legislation.
Liberals and Conservatives stood together at a Senate press conference today to discuss the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act.
Senator Evan Bayh (R-Ind.) author of the bill, along with Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Senator Jon Kyl (D-Ind.), said that bi-partisanship had been achieved on this bill because of the “critical importance of this issue.”
The purpose of the legislation, which expands on the Iran Sanction of 1996, Lieberman said is, “to empower President Obama...by providing him with the explicit authority to target Iran’s achilles economic heel, which is its dependence on imports of petroleum...most notably gasoline.”
Lieberman accused previous legislation of being “quite ambiguous” and said that this legislation would “eliminate” that ambiguity. The new proposal would provide the President with a “powerful new weapon to use in the negotiations with Iran,” said Lieberman. Adding it is up to President Obama to decide, “when, where and against whom to use it.”
Bayh said the bill would help to “strengthen the President’s outreach” to Iran. Adding “if events continue go as they are currently going, then at some point during the next two to four years Iran will have a nuclear weapon”. This would have a “destabilizing” effect on the entire world,” said Bayh. This bill, he said, “gives us our best opportunity to avoid that outcome without the resort to military force.”
Kyl said the bill gives the President the tool to “stop companies who continue to sell refined gasoline to Iran or provide refining capacity from doing business in the United States or through the American banking systems.”
“In effect what we are saying to the few companies in the world who provide this refined gasoline to Iran is, ‘You can either do business in our $13 trillion economy with us, or you can do business with Iran with its $250 billion economy, but you can’t do both,’” said Kyl.
In closing Lieberman said, “this is important legislation introduced at a critical time whose consequences for the people of America, Iran, Israel and the Arab world are going to be quite serious.” Adding that he hoped this bill would make it “more likely” for the “diplomatic engagements” between President Obama and the Irani government to succeed and that “they will peacefully abandon their nuclear ambitions.”
Twenty-five U.S. Senators, from both parties, have currently signed their name as a co-sponsors to this piece of legislation.
Tightening Security On Cyber Attacks
Legislation to tighten prevention on cyber hackings into America’s electric grid entered the House and Senate today.
Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Missi.) authors of their respective chamber’s bill want to give more authority to the Department of Homeland Security to address current vulnerabilities in the electric grid and better protect the system from potential threats.
The electric grid is the heart of all electricity supplies in America, providing every community in very state with power. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are “more than 3,100 electric utilities in America.” If one of the utilities is hacked into by an unwanted source, then whole towns or cities could be left without power. Hacking could also lead to a potential security risk as Homeland Security data could then be read by hackers.
Thompson said, “Right now FERC (The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)has the responsibility for working with the electric industry, but the industry polices itself, so basically what we want to do in this bill, is to give FERC additional authority to require
industries to do what’s in their best interests from the cyber standpoint. They’ve been good so far, but now that we know that potential threats are out here and the fact that hacking and other situations have occurred, we think it’s in our best interests that this legislation be put forward today.”
Lieberman added, “Our cyber systems are under constant attack...the reality is that we are not adequately defended and therefore the basic systems, including particularly electricity on which we depend are not protected. This has got to change. We have got to close the gap between the attacks on us and our ability to defend them.”
Changes to the current legislation, The Federal Power Act, outlined in Thompson and Lieberman’s amendment have stemmed from recommendations by the “Former Chairman of FERC, the chairman of the Association of the Utilities, numerous cyber experts and representatives from the industries,” who all told Congress that these changes were “necessary,” Lieberman said.
Lending his support to the bill, Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) said, “In the summer of 2003 when we had the blackout in the north-east that