IV 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 410 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Iran Nuclear 
Agreement Review Act of 2015 does not apply to the Joint Comprehen-
sive Plan of Action regarding Iran and submitted to Congress on July 
19, 2015, because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is a treaty 
and, pursuant to Article II of the U.S. Constitution, the Senate must 
give its advice and consent to ratification if the Joint Comprehensive 
Plan of Action is to be effective and binding upon the United States. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 
Mr. GOHMERT (for himself, Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina, Mr. MCCLIN-
TOCK, Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. BABIN, Mr. YOHO, and Mr. BRAT) sub-
mitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 does 
not apply to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 
regarding Iran and submitted to Congress on July 19, 
2015, because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 
is a treaty and, pursuant to Article II of the U.S. Con-
stitution, the Senate must give its advice and consent 
to ratification if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 
is to be effective and binding upon the United States. 
Whereas, on March 11, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry, 
in describing the Administration’s nuclear negotiations 
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•HRES 410 IH 
with Iran, clearly stated that it was ‘‘not negotiating a 
legally binding plan’’ with Iran and therefore it does not 
have to be submitted to Congress; 
Whereas, on August 6, 2015, White House Press Secretary 
Josh Earnest, at a White House Press Briefing, stated 
that ‘‘we don’t need Congress to approve this [Iran nu-
clear deal]’’; 
Whereas, on July 28, 2015, Secretary Kerry, at a hearing be-
fore the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, stated 
that ‘‘the reason why’’ the Iran nuclear agreement is not 
considered a treaty is because ‘‘it’s become physically im-
possible . . . [to] pass a treaty [through the United 
States Senate] anymore. . . . [I]t’s become impossible to 
. . . schedule. It’s become impossible to pass.’’; 
Whereas two days after Secretary Kerry testified that it has 
become ‘‘physically impossible’’ for the Senate to ratify 
treaties, the United States formally ratified the Amend-
ment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nu-
clear Material when Henry S. Ensher, the Department of 
State’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA), delivered the United States instrument 
of ratification to the IAEA; 
Whereas, on June 4, 2015, less than two months before Sec-
retary Kerry testified that it has become ‘‘physically im-
possible’’ for the Senate to ratify treaties, he stated that 
the Department of State is ‘‘preparing the instruments of 
ratification of [several] important treaties’’ and that he 
‘‘want[s] to personally thank the U.S. Congress . . . for 
their efforts on’’ the implementing legislation for the nu-
clear security treaties; 
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•HRES 410 IH 
Whereas, on May 7, 2015, the Senate held a vote on the Iran 
Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, commonly re-
ferred to as the ‘‘Corker-Cardin bill’’, in which every Sen-
ator voted on that bill with the understanding that the 
Iran nuclear agreement was an executive agreement, and 
not a treaty, and that United States sanctions on Iran’s 
ballistic missile program remain in place; 
Whereas the Corker-Cardin bill states that ‘‘[i]t is the sense 
of Congress that . . . United States sanctions on Iran for 
. . . ballistic missiles will remain in place under an agree-
ment related to the nuclear program of Iran that includes 
the United States’’; 
Whereas the Corker-Cardin bill was intended as a review of 
the application of statutory sanctions against only Iran’s 
nuclear program; 
Whereas the Corker-Cardin bill prescribes a process for con-
gressional review only of ‘‘Agreements with Iran Related 
to the Nuclear Program of Iran’’; 
Whereas under subsections (b) and (c) of section 135 of the 
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as added by the Corker- 
Cardin bill, lawmakers may resolve to approve, dis-
approve, or take no action on ‘‘Nuclear Agreements with 
Iran’’; 
Whereas section 135(d) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 
as added by the Corker-Cardin bill, calls for ‘‘Congres-
sional Oversight of Iranian Compliance with Nuclear 
Agreements’’; 
Whereas, on July 14, 2015, the Administration finalized the 
Iran nuclear agreement and referred to it as the ‘‘Joint 
Comprehensive Plan of Action’’ (JCPOA); 
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Whereas, on July 19, 2015, the Administration submitted the 
JCPOA to Congress; 
Whereas the JCPOA is not limited to sanctions enacted by 
Congress related to only Iran’s nuclear program; 
Whereas the JCPOA extends to Iran’s ballistic missiles pro-
grams and other weapons activities—including the lifting 
of international arms embargoes covering both ‘‘any ma-
terial or technology that might be useful to a ballistic- 
missile program,’’ and ‘‘battle tanks, armored combat ve-
hicles, large caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, at-
tack helicopters, warships, missiles, or missile systems’’; 
Whereas Congress was informed only after the JCPOA was 
submitted to Congress that it removed international re-
strictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program and conven-
tional arms; 
Whereas because the terms of the Iran nuclear negotiations 
changed after Congress voted on the Corker-Cardin bill, 
the bill does not permit Congress to review or approve 
agreements on ballistic missiles and other weapons; 
Whereas until July 22, 2015, more than a week after the 
Iran nuclear agreement was finalized, Secretary Kerry 
failed to inform Congress of the existence of ‘‘side deals’’ 
to nuclear agreement between the IAEA and Iran; 
Whereas recent news reports indicate the IAEA has a secret 
agreement which would allow Iran to use its own experts 
to inspect a site allegedly used to develop nuclear arms, 
directly contradicting the intended effect of the Corker- 
Cardin bill by bypassing congressional oversight; 
Whereas the Administration failed to follow the Corker- 
Cardin bill which required it to provide Congress with all 
nuclear agreement documents, including all ‘‘annexes, ap-
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pendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing mate-
rials, documents, and guidance, technical or other under-
standings and any related agreements, whether entered 
into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be en-
tered into or implemented in the future’’; 
Whereas the Administration failed to comply with the Corker- 
Cardin bill by not transmitting the nuclear agreement, 
‘‘including all materials,’’ to Congress by ‘‘September 7, 
2015’’; 
Whereas the JCPOA grants Iran’s Quds Force commander 
Qasem Soleimani, Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad 
Najjar, who trained and commanded Hezbollah fighters 
in Lebanon at the time of the Beirut barracks bombing, 
and Hossein Salami, the current second-in-command of 
the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, indi-
vidual relief from international sanctions; 
Whereas the JCPOA amends Article I of the Treaty on the 
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (commonly re-
ferred to as the ‘‘Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’’ or 
‘‘NPT’’) to which the United States is a signatory, and 
under which the United States is obligated ‘‘not in any 
way to assist, encourage, or induce . . . [Iran] to acquire 
nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or 
control over such weapons or explosive devices’’; 
Whereas the JCPOA amends Article II of the NPT under 
which Iran is responsible not to acquire, directly or indi-
rectly, nuclear weapons or capabilities of controlling nu-
clear weapons; 
Whereas the JCPOA and the various secret side agreements 
to the JCPOA amend Article III of the NPT regarding 
international inspectors in Iran ‘‘who shall have access at 
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all times to all places and data and to any person who 
by reason of his occupation deals with materials, equip-
ment, or facilities which are required by this Statute to 
be safeguarded’’; 
Whereas the JCPOA amends the NPT outside of the pre-
scribed method of amendment in Article VIII of the 
NPT; 
Whereas, on July 31, 2015, the non-partisan Congressional 
Research Service released a study establishing that Iran’s 
defense budget ranges anywhere from $14 to $30 billion 
a year, with much of that money going to fund terrorist 
proxy groups and rebel fighters across the Middle East, 
including in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip; 
Whereas it is evident that the JCPOA is fundamentally dif-
ferent from the ‘‘international agreement’’ described by 
the Administration when Congress passed the Corker- 
Cardin bill; 
Whereas it is evident that the Corker-Cardin bill does not 
reach many of the parts of the finalized nuclear agree-
ment with Iran, and that the JCPOA thoroughly 
marginalized the Corker-Cardin bill; 
Whereas the Corker-Cardin bill is designed to address an 
international agreement that is fundamentally different 
from the JCPOA and not a treaty; and 
Whereas it is now evident the JCPOA is of sufficient mag-
nitude that it rises to the level of a treaty: Now, there-
fore, be it 
Resolved, That— 
(1) the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 
2015, commonly referred to as the ‘‘Corker-Cardin 
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bill’’, does not apply to the Joint Comprehensive 
Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding Iran because the 
JCPOA is fundamentally different from the agree-
ment as represented to Congress by the Administra-
tion and that the Corker-Cardin bill is only applica-
ble to an agreement that is not a treaty; 
(2) Article II of the U.S. Constitution declares 
that the President ‘‘shall have Power, by and with 
the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make 
Treaties,’’ but only if ‘‘two thirds of the Senators 
present concur’’; 
(3) the JCPOA is a treaty and, pursuant to Ar-
ticle II of the U.S. Constitution, the Senate must 
give its advice and consent to ratification if the 
JCPOA is to be effective and binding upon the 
United States; and 
(4) not later than 30 days after the date of the 
adoption of this resolution, the Senate should sched-
ule and consider a resolution of ratification with re-
spect to the JCPOA. 
Æ 
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