Among Republicans the vote was 24 to 26 against the measure. All Democrats voted in favor.
The Export-Import Bank failed to be reauthorized by a June 30 deadline. It has not been making new loans since. The current legislation that passed the senate would reauthorize the bank.
Free market groups have long opposed the Ex-Im Bank, while many business interest groups call it vital.
U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton recently traveled to Vienna to meet with officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). They have revealed the existence of two side deals between Iran and IDEA that are important and relevant to the deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry and promoted by President Barack Obama. According to a Pompeo spokesperson, the existence of these side deals was not a secret, having been mentioned in an IDEA press release from July 14. But the content of the agreements is secret, and their significance unknown.
Following, two press releases from July 21 and 22 from Pompeo’s office.
July 21, 2015
Pompeo, Cotton Urge Disclosure of Complete Iran Nuclear Deal
IAEA tells the lawmakers that two inspections arrangements regarding Iran’s past military work will remain secret
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Mike Pompeo (KS-04) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) on Friday had a meeting in Vienna with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), during which the agency conveyed to the lawmakers that two side deals made between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will remain secret and will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the public. One agreement covers the inspection of the Parchin military complex, and the second details how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.
According to the IAEA, the Iran agreement negotiators, including the Obama administration, agreed that the IAEA and Iran would forge separate arrangements to govern the inspection of the Parchin military complex — one of the most secretive military facilities in Iran — and how Iran would satisfy the IAEA’s outstanding questions regarding past weaponization work. Both arrangements will not be vetted by any organization other than Iran and the IAEA, and will not be released even to the nations that negotiated the JCPOA. This means that the secret arrangements have not been released for public scrutiny and have not been submitted to Congress as part of its legislatively mandated review of the Iran deal.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali Akhbar Salehi signing a roadmap for the clarification of past and present issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna.Parchin is a critical linchpin in the Iranian nuclear program that has long-been suspected of both long-range ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development. In 2011, the IAEA suspected that the facility was used to conduct high-explosive experiments as part of an effort to build nuclear weapons.
Even under the woefully inadequate Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the Obama administration is required to provide the U.S. Congress with all nuclear agreement documents, including all “annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.”
Pompeo said: “This agreement is the worst of backroom deals. In addition to allowing Iran to keep its nuclear program, missile program, American hostages, and terrorist network, the Obama administration has failed to make public separate side deals that have been struck for the ‘inspection’ of one of the most important nuclear sites—the Parchin military complex. Not only does this violate the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, it is asking Congress to agree to a deal that it cannot review.
“The failure to disclose the content of these side agreements begs the question, ‘What is the Obama administration hiding?’ Even members of Congress who are sympathetic to this deal cannot and must not accept a deal we aren’t even aware of. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand up and demand to see the complete deal.”
Cotton said: “In failing to secure the disclosure of these secret side deals, the Obama administration is asking Congress and the American people to trust, but not verify. What we cannot do is trust the terror-sponsoring, anti-American, outlaw regime that governs Iran and that has been deceiving the world on its nuclear weapons work for years. Congress’s evaluation of this deal must be based on hard facts and full information. That we are only now discovering that parts of this dangerous agreement are being kept secret begs the question of what other elements may also be secret and entirely free from public scrutiny.”
July 22, 2015
Pompeo, Cotton, Boehner and McConnell Request President Obama Disclose Secret Side Agreements to Iran Nuclear Deal
Washington, D.C. — Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) today joined House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in sending a letter to President Obama requesting two side agreements between the IAEA and Iran be provided to Congress.
The letter reads, in part:
The purpose of the Iran Nuclear Agreement review Act is to ensure Congress has a fully informed understanding of the JCPOA. Failure to produce these two side agreements leaves Congress blind on critical information regarding Iran’s potential path to being a nuclear power and will have detrimental consequences for the ability of members to assess the JCPOA. We request you transmit these two side agreements to Congress immediately so we may perform our duty to assess the many important questions related to the JCPOA.
The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act was passed before the end of negotiations and the Obama Administration was well aware of its responsibility to submit all related agreements and documents to Congress. It is therefore incumbent on the Administration to secure those side agreements and submit them to Congress for review.
The letter comes after a recent meeting between Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, during which the agency conveyed that two side deals made between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will remain secret and will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the public. The first agreement covers the inspection of the Parchin military complex, and the second details how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.
While praising the U.S. Economic Development Administration for a small grant to a local institution, the Wichita Eagle editorial board overlooks the big picture.
The op-ed also criticizes U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, who has sponsored legislation and offered amendments to end the EDA.
While the Eagle op-ed is designed to make us feel happy for Wichita State University (and bad about Rep. Pompeo, especially given the photo the newspaper used to illustrate the story online), the short-sighted and naive reasoning behind it is harmful. The op-ed promotes the impression that federal money is free, a gift from a magical fairy godmother that falls out of the sky in abundance. Anyone who opposes this free stuff must be evil.
But in exchange for the grant to WSU, we have to tolerate grants like these made by the EDA:
In 2008, the EDA provided $2,000,000 to begin construction of the UNLV Harry Reid Research & Technology Park in Las Vegas, NV. For many years the UNLV Harry Reid Research & Technology Park featured a paved road and a website claiming the first anticipated tenant would move in in 2010. But there are signs of life now in 2015, according to the article Signs of life emerge at UNLV’s long-dormant technology park.)
In 2010, $25,000,000 was spent by the EDA for a Global Climate Mitigation Incentive Fund and $2,000,000 for a “culinary amphitheater,” wine tasting room and gift shop in Washington State.
In 2011, the EDA gave a New Mexico town $1,500,000 to renovate a theater.
In 2013, the EDA also gave Massachusetts $1.4 million to promote new video games.
Back in the 1980s, the EDA used taxpayer dollars to build replicas of the Great Wall of China and the Egyptian Pyramids in the middle of Indiana. They were never completed — it is now a dumping ground for tires.
So in exchange for WSU receiving a million dollars this year and $1.9 million last year, we have to put up with the above. We have to wonder if Harry Reid being the number one Senate Democrat had anything to do with a grant for a facility named in his honor. We have yet another government agency staffed with a fleet of bureaucrats, including a chief who will travel to Wichita to promote and defend his agency. We have another government agency that believes it can better decide how to invest capital than the owners of the capital. We have another example of shipping tax dollars to Washington, seeing a large fraction skimmed off the top, then cities and states begging for scraps from the leftovers.
Often when the Eagle editorial board criticizes conservatives, it does so by using terms like “driven by ideology” or “blind adherence to right-wing ideology.”
But anyone parachuting down from Mars and observing this system for making investment decisions would wonder: Why do they do this? What kind of ideology would result in this nonsense?
You’ll have to ask the Wichita Eagle editorial board.
Rep. Pompeo on the EDA
In January 2012 Pompeo wrote an op-ed which explains the harm of the EDA. Here is an excerpt:
Last week, Secretary Fernandez invited himself to Wichita at taxpayer expense and met with the Wichita Eagle’s editorial board. Afterwards, the paper accurately noted I am advocating eliminating the EDA even though that agency occasionally awards grant money to projects in South Central Kansas. They just don’t get it. Thanks to decades of this flawed “You take yours, I’ll take mine” Washington logic, our nation now faces a crippling $16 trillion national debt.
I first learned about the EDA when Secretary Fernandez testified in front of my subcommittee that the benefits of EDA projects exceed the costs and cited the absurd example of a $1.4 million award for “infrastructure” that allegedly helped a Minnesota town secure a new $1.6 billion steel mill. As a former CEO, I knew there is no way that a taxpayer subsidy equal to less than one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of the total capital needed made a difference in launching the project. That mill was getting built whether EDA’s grant came through or not. So, I decided to dig further.
I discovered that the EDA is a federal agency we can do without. Similar to earmarks that gave us the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” or the Department of Energy loan guarantee scandal that produced Solyndra, the EDA advances local projects that narrowly benefit a particular company or community. To be sure, the EDA occasionally supports a local project here in Kansas. But it takes our tax money every year for projects in 400-plus other congressional districts, many if not most of which are boondoggles. For example: EDA gave $2 million to help construct UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park; $2 million for a “culinary amphitheater,” tasting room, and gift shop at a Washington state winery; and $500,000 to construct (never-completed) replicas of the Great Pyramids in rural Indiana.
Several times in recent decades, the Government Accountability Office has questioned the value and efficacy of the EDA. Good-government groups like Citizens Against Government Waste have called for dismantling the agency. In addition, eliminating the EDA was listed among the recommendations of President Obama’s own bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission.
So why hasn’t it been shut down already? Politics. The EDA spreads taxpayer-funded project money far and wide and attacks congressmen who fail to support EDA grants. Soon after that initial hearing, Secretary Fernandez flew in his regional director — again at taxpayer expense — to show me “all the great things we are doing in your home district” and handed me a list of recent and pending local grants. Hint, hint. You can’t say I wasn’t warned to back off. Indeed, Eagle editors missed the real story here: Secretary Fernandez flew to Wichita because he is a bureaucrat trying to save his high-paying gig. The bureaucracy strikes back when conservatives take on bloated, out-of-control, public spending, so I guess I’m making progress.
Please don’t misunderstand. I am not faulting cities, universities, or companies for having sought “free” federal money from the EDA. The fault lies squarely with a Washington culture that insists every program is sacred and there is no spending left to cut.
A federal agency run at the Assistant Secretary level has not been eliminated in decades. Now is the time. My bill to eliminate the EDA (HR 3090) would take one small step toward restoring fiscal sanity and constitutional government.
Last year Pompeo offered an amendment to H.R. 4660, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015, to eliminate the Economic Development Administration (or the “Earmark Distribution Agency”). The amendment would send EDA’s total funding — $247 million in FY 2015 — to the Deficit Reduction Account, saving up to $2.5 billion over 10 years based on current levels.
“We need to solve America’s debt crisis before it is too late, and that means reducing wasteful spending, no matter the agency or branch of government,” said Rep. Pompeo. “The EDA should be called the ‘Earmark Distribution Agency,’ as it continues to spend taxpayer dollars on local pet projects in a way similar to congressional earmarks — which have already been banned by the House.”
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Congressman Mike Pompeo talks about risks to America from overseas, Benghazi, congressional scorecards, the Grant Return for Deficit Reduction Act, and labeling food with genetically engineered ingredients. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 78, broadcast March 15, 2015.
Kansans Tim Huelskamp and Mike Pompeo are among the eight U.S. House Members who scored 100 percent for 2014 on Club for Growth’s scorecard.
Club for Growth describes itself as “a national network of over 100,000 pro-growth, limited government Americans who share in the belief that prosperity and opportunity come from economic freedom.”
On the scorecard for 2014, released today, Kansas Representatives Tim Huelskamp and Mike Pompeo voted with the Club for Growth’s preferred position one hundred percent of the time. So did six other members of the House of Representatives.
On the club’s Senate scorecard for 2014, Pat Roberts was ranked at number 11 with a score of 90, far above his lifetime score of 76. Jerry Moran was ranked at spot 25, with a score of 69 (lifetime score 73).
Cato Institute scholars Alex Nowrasteh, Aaron Ross Powell, Neal McCluskey, Mark Calabria, Bill Watson, Chris Edwards, Gene Healy, Chris Preble, Julian Sanchez, Pat Michaels and Trevor Burrus respond to President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address. View below, or click here to view in high definition at YouTube.
Video produced by Caleb O. Brown, Austin Bragg and Tess Terrible.
On December 10 there will be a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee to review the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. We will hear testimony from expert scientists and those with a wide variety of experiences. We will also hear from those who produce the safest food in the world here in America.
This legislation will make the following reforms:
Ensure that new innovations in food are — and always remain — safe by creating a mandatory process for all genetically engineered crops that requires an FDA safety review prior to their introduction into the food supply;
Empower the FDA to specify special labeling if these foods are found to be unsafe in any way, and;
Preserve the FDA’s 100-year management of food labeling and prevent a disruptive regulatory patchwork that will significantly increase the cost of food for families.
For GMOs, a patchwork of state regulations would be a nightmare
A complicated regulatory landscape for genetically modified foods would shift power to large food producers at the expense of small companies and innovative startups.
Have you ever seen a product that displayed a label that states: “This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.” And notifying you that you should wash your hands after handling it?
In my case, it was a cable attached to a computer peripheral.
How is that that the State of California “knows” this product is harmful, but none of the other states or the federal government have such knowledge? And why should I — here in Kansas — be discouraged by buying a product and then be scared to use it, just because California believes it is harmful?
The answer is that California has a list of about 900 chemicals that it believes are harmful. If you want to sell a product in California, and if your product contains one of these, you must provide a warning label on your product.
Now, can you imagine the confusion that would result if other states had their own list of chemicals that they believe are harmful. It’s quite likely that each state would have a different list. Complying with the multitude of different harmful lists and labeling requirements would be a burden. It might be impossible — or very costly — to comply.
Today, we have similar potential for regulatory complexity cropping up in the form of state-based label requirements for foods that contain GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Dozens of states are considering their own labeling requirements for food sold within their borders. It’s quite likely that each state would have a different set of labeling requirements. The complexity of complying with such disjointed regulations is costly and forbidding.
The proposed law does not prohibit voluntarily labeling.
What’s interesting is that opponents say this bill will create a new federal bureaucracy to enforce GMO regulations. I suppose that’s true. But it’s either that, or 50 states with 50 sets of regulations, all different. Cities could add regulations, too, further complicating the regulatory landscape.
Another observation: Critics of this bill say its supporters have “sold out” to the large food producer companies, Monsanto being mentioned most prominently. But it is large companies like Monsanto that are best able to cope with complicated regulations. Large companies have fleets of lawyers and compliance officers that can deal with burdensome regulation. And being large, these companies can spread the cost of regulation over a large sales volume.
But small companies, start up companies, and innovators don’t have lots of lawyers and compliance officers. Being small, they can’t spread the cost of regulation over a large sales volume. These are the companies that are most harmed by regulations like those that H.R. 4432 is designed to squelch.
It’s in the interest of large companies to have regulations that create barriers to entry to markets by new competitors. We often see companies lobbying to create such regulations. But H.R. 4432 will create a uniform playing field that is easier and simpler to navigate and obey.
Finally, markets have a remarkable ability to provide the products and information that consumers want. If a food producer senses that consumers want information about the ingredients in a product, they’ll provide it. Their competitors — if they see themselves disadvantaged — will also provide the information that consumers demand. The alternative is relying on 50 sets of government bureaucrats operating in 50 state capitals, plus ambitious city bureaucrats.
On the Joseph Ashby Show, United States Representative Mike Pompeo appeared on August 7, 2014, two days after primary election day. Bob Weeks is the guest host. We discuss the primary election and what’s ahead for the United States Congress in the upcoming months.
The contest in the Kansas fourth district is a choice between principle and political expediency, and between economic freedom and cronyism.
While some news articles and political columns have described the contest for Republican Party nomination for United States House of Representatives between Todd Tiahrt and Mike Pompeo as a yawner, as between two candidates with few and only minor distinguishing positions — there are important differences. The press is starting to notice.
In the Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel made the case for this contest’s importance as a bellwether of Republican sentiment:
A big decision comes Tuesday in the Kansas GOP primary. The Sunflower State is in the throes of political upheaval, with most of the attention on the fortunes of Gov. Sam Brownback and Sen. Pat Roberts. But the race that may say far more about the direction of the GOP is taking place in Wichita, the state’s Fourth District, in the standoff between Rep. Mike Pompeo and challenger Todd Tiahrt.
The 50-year-old Mr. Pompeo — an Army veteran, Harvard Law grad and businessman — was elected in the 2010 tea party surge, with a particular focus on liberating private enterprise. He’s made a name for himself as a leader in the fight to end corporate welfare and pork, and to cut back on strangling regulations. (Potomac Watch: A Crony Capitalism Showdown, August 1, 2014)
(If the above link does not work for you because you don’t have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, click here.)
After detailing some legislative activity and accomplishment, Strassel notes the difficulty that fighters for economic freedom encounter: “Such principles are precisely what conservative voters claim to demand from their representatives. Yet the antisubsidy line has hardly been an easy one, even in conservative Kansas — which collects its share of federal largess. And Mr. Tiahrt knows it.”
Concluding her column, Strassel outlines the choice that so many writers have failed to realize:
The choice voters fundamentally face on Tuesday is whether they want a congressman who works to get government smaller for everyone and to end corporate welfare, or a congressman who grabs what he can of big government to funnel to his district, and embraces crony capitalism. The latter is a return to the unreformed GOP, a groove plenty of Republicans would happily slide back into — if only voters gave the nod. We’ll see if Kansas conservatives do.
Another example of the difference between the two candidates is the Export-Import Bank. Conservative groups are urging that Congress not reauthorize the bank, a vote that will happen soon. The most common argument is that it harms American jobs, and there are allegations of corruption in its operations.
While in Congress, Pompeo voted against the reauthorization of the bank. He has said he would vote against its reauthorization again unless there is significant reform. Tiahrt, on the other hand, voted in favor of the Export-Import Bank. It’s representative of the type of cronyism he has supported while in office, and would likely support again, especially as his positions tack to the political left.
![Slider_ScorecardLegislative2013Update[1]](https://i0.wp.com/wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Slider_ScorecardLegislative2013Update1-300x282.jpg?resize=300%2C282)
After detailing some legislative activity and accomplishment, Strassel notes the difficulty that fighters for economic freedom encounter: “Such principles are precisely what conservative voters claim to demand from their representatives. Yet the antisubsidy line has hardly been an easy one, even in conservative Kansas — which collects its share of federal largess. And Mr. Tiahrt knows it.”