WASHINGTON - Even as a United Nations report warns that Iran is continuing its headlong drive towards becoming a nuclear weapons state, House Republicans are rewarding a mining company that shares a uranium mine with Iran and protecting financial and other institutions which do business with the dangerous regime.
"We'll diffuse the Iranian ticking time bomb if the international political and business community isolates this dangerous regime, and Republicans in Congress are not helping this effort, they're hurting it," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. "House Republicans shouldn't be doing favors for companies that refuse to sever their business ties to Iran, or for financial intermediaries which support Ahmadinejad's regime."
More on Iran: Resolution Copper, Rio Tinto and the Iran Connection >>
In two votes over two weeks, House Republicans blocked efforts by Democrats to end corporate ties to Iran. The first vote, on October 26th, was to require the mining company Rio Tinto to sever its ties with the Iranian government before it could receive thousands of acres of American public lands to open a copper mine. The British and Australian mining company owns 65 percent of the largest open pit uranium mine in Namibia. The second largest partner in the mine -- at 15 percent -- is the government of Iran (which also includes two members on the mine's board of directors). Republicans rejected the idea that we shouldn't condone partnerships with Iran to mine uranium, a key component of nuclear weapons, by a vote of 237 to 187.
The second vote was on November 3rd, when House Democrats offered a bill that would have prohibited financial or other business intermediaries from doing business with any person who directly or indirectly is doing business with Iran. Republicans unanimously rejected that measure as well by an identical vote of 237 to 187.
"House Republicans may have dissension within the ranks on many issues, but when it comes to these efforts to penalize companies which do business with Iran, they are unanimously opposed to it," said Rep. Markey. "Americans want clean energy jobs created in the United States, not nuclear jobs created in Iran."
