Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) lauded the passage of legislation designed to curb nuclear proliferation in Iran. H.R. 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions, of which Nadler is a co-sponsor, calls on the United States to broaden diplomatic efforts to end Iran’s uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons programs and, failing that, empowers the President to expand the sanctions currently imposed on the Iranian regime.

“We must exercise zero tolerance of nuclear proliferation in Iran,” said Nadler. “Iran’s current regime is one of the most dangerous and incendiary in the world, and we must use every tool in our political and economic arsenals to prevent it from constructing nuclear weapons. The prospect of a nuclear Iran is a startling and unacceptable possibility.”

Despite many months of multilateral diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and its allies to curb Iran’s proliferation of nuclear materials, Iran recently announced its plans to construct additional uranium processing facilities. H.R. 2194, introduced by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA), expresses the sense of Congress that the U.S. should first exhaust diplomatic measures to end Iranian nuclear proliferation and, if necessary, gives the President the power to broaden sanctions against companies that supply Iran with – or support its domestic production of – gasoline and other refined petroleum products.

H.R. 2194 also makes clear that the “U.S. concerns regarding Iran are strictly the result of that government’s actions;…and…the people of the United States have feelings of friendship for the people of Iran and regret that developments in recent decades have created impediments to that friendship.”