I am glad to see that this Committee is building upon that work that we completed last year on this issue. 

I supported the bill last year and I will support the bill before me today. 

I was glad to see included in today’s mark a reporting requirement on future violations of existing sanctions.  This is a provision that I worked - both in the Finance and the Banking Committee - to include in last year’s bill.  

As it stands the State Department, in conjunction with the Administration, is not required to provide any type of report to Congress or publish in the Federal Register a list of potential violations of our sanctions against Iran. 

I thank Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby for including this provision.  I believe this is an important step forward in giving our existing sanctions “teeth” and providing some sort of transparency on this issue. 

I have long said that the danger of a nuclear Iran poses one of – if not - the greatest threats to our national security.  As this rogue nation continues to ignore three United Nations Security Council resolutions, the time for Congress to act is now. 

The longer we wait, the more time Iran has to continue building up their nuclear program under the “guise” of diplomatic negotiations. 

How many more secret nuclear facilities will it take before we realize that we need to take some sort of retaliatory action? 

Now is the time to expand our sanctions even further and deny Iran the financial capital needed to fund their nuclear proliferation and support for international terrorism.

I support this bill and thank the chairman for holding this markup today.