Senate Negotiating Priorities Include Iran Sanctions, Technology Export Provisions
Among the 28 motions to instruct for China package negotiations that will be considered next Tuesday and Wednesday in the Senate, two are on sanctions, and one requires that business funding programs document that technology developed at the companies receiving grants don't share sensitive technology with China or Russia.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced April 27 that there would be 28 votes next week on motions to instruct senators who will be negotiating with House members on the Senate's priorities for the compromise China package. These instructions are non-binding, but if any of them get at least 60 votes, they lay down important markers about what either can or cannot be in the final bill if it is going to pass the Senate.
"Tonight’s agreement is very good news for America, for good paying jobs in America, for economic strength in America, for investments in the kinds of science and technology that will help us grow as a country and provide great futures for the next generation," Schumer said on the floor of the Senate. "This bill represents the next major step towards finally sending a jobs and competition bill to the President’s desk."
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., asked for a vote that would require any deal with Iran to address not just Iran's nuclear program but also its "other destabilizing activities," and the motion would prohibit the executive branch from lifting sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked for a vote on a motion to require the executive branch to write a report identifying links between China and Iran, and asked that sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran and on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be used to limit cooperation between the two countries.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Kan., asked for a vote that would only allow the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs to continue if they show they are preventing Russia or China from acquiring national security-sensitive technology funded by those programs.