New House Bill Could Complicate Boeing, Airbus Sales to Iran
Rep. Roskam introduces legislation in new Congress to prevent Iran from using commercial airliners for military or other 'illicit' purposes.

A Republican congressman has introduced legislation in the new U.S. Congress that could complicate Boeing and Airbus sales to Iran Air, made possible by a multinational nuclear agreement signed in July 2015. The action came on the heels of Airbus’s first new airliner delivery to state-owned Iran Air two days earlier.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) introduced H.R. 566 on January 13. It calls for the incoming Trump administration to report on Iran’s use of commercial aircraft and related services for “illicit military or other activities.” Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Lee Zeidin (R-N.Y.) are listed as consponsors of the legislation. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In the previous, 114th Congress, Roskam introduced legislation to prohibit the U.S. Export-Import Bank from providing financing that would benefit Iran. The “No Ex-Im Assistance for Terrorism Act,” was incorporated in another bill that barred the Treasury Department from authorizing commercial aircraft sales to Iran, which the previous House passed in November.

Roskam represents the Illinois sixth congressional district, located west of Chicago—Boeing’s corporate headquarters. In a speech on the House floor during the debate over the Treasury Department legislation, he said: “We now have American companies that are saying ‘you know what? Let’s go in and let’s do business with a terrorist regime. Let’s just go make a buck.’ The scandal is that there are American companies, there are international companies—Boeing, Airbus—that are now making their own names inextricably linked with terror for evermore.”

Roskam’s Washington, D.C. office did not immediately issue a statement or explanation of the new legislation.