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Washington, D.C. – Following Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests, continued support for terrorism and increased human rights abuses, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), today co-sponsored two bills that would strengthen and expand sanctions on Iran.
 
“Iran’s continued terrorist activities, illegal missile testing, and human rights abuses are a disastrous consequence of the Obama Administration’s inept foreign policy,” Rubio said. “As Iran continues to walk all over the U.S. and our allies, we need to impose new sanctions and codify existing regulations regarding Iran’s access to the U.S. financial system.”
 
The Iran Ballistic Missile Sanctions Act of 2016, introduced with Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Jim Risch (R-ID), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Rob Portman (R-OH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), would:

• Impose new sanctions against persons that knowingly aiding Iran’s ballistic missile program;

• Require new sanctions against entities owned 25 percent or greater or controlled by Iran’s key ballistic missile organizations (the Aerospace Industries Organization, the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, or the Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group);

• Require a Presidential certification that persons listed in UN Security Council Resolutions are not engaged in activities related to ballistic missiles and requires the imposition of sanctions if that certification cannot be made; and

• Impose sanctions on persons involved in sectors of Iran’s economy that support, directly or indirectly, Iran’s ballistic program.

 
The Iran Terrorism and Human Rights Sanctions Act of 2016, introduced with Senators Kirk, Ayotte, Gardner, McConnell, Cornyn, Portman, Cruz, Murkowski, Dan Coats (R-IN), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and David Perdue (R-GA), would:

• Impose new sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Mahan Air, an Iranian airline that has helped the IRGC to spread terrorism and militancy;

• Codify current prohibitions against Iran’s direct and indirect access to the U.S. financial system, while also streamlining and strengthening the requirements for the President to remove Iran or any other country from the state sponsors of terrorism list; and

• Impose new sanctions against Iran for its egregious human rights abuses.