OREANDA-NEWS. Two senators want to extend for 10 years a US law that directs the president to impose sanctions on companies that make significant investments in Iran's oil and gas sector.

As the US and P5+1 negotiating partners are trying to reach a comprehensive agreement with Iran by 30 June that would swap sanctions relief for nuclear concessions, senators Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) and Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) have introduced a bill to extend the Iran Sanction Act until 31 December 2026.

First passed in 1996, the Iran Sanctions Act directs the imposition of sanctions on companies that invest more than \$20mn/yr in Iran's energy sector. The statute has been extended a number of times and is now scheduled to expire at the end of 2016.

If the nuclear talks prove successful, the US would agree to relieve what are deemed "nuclear-related" sanctions, including a measure that threatened to sanction the banks of countries that fail to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil significantly.

But a panoply of other US sanctions measures would remain in place. The Iran Sanctions Act was first adopted in response to Iran's alleged sponsorship of terrorism and reputed efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

"If the White House is serious about maintaining terrorism sanctions against Iran no matter what, it must support our bipartisan effort to renew this expiring law," Kirk said.

Menendez said that if the US were to fail to renew the Iran Sanctions Act "we would be unilaterally lifting sanctions on Iran and unilaterally disarming."

Kirk and Menendez have long been hawks regarding US policy toward Iran and have teamed up on a number of Iran sanctions measures.

The bill comes as US secretary of state John Kerry is poised to leave for Vienna to rejoin the nuclear negotiations.

If the US and its negotiating partners, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, Congress will have an initial 30 days to examine and debate the agreement. If they are unhappy with the deal, they will have an additional 12 days to adopt a resolution of disapproval. If Obama were to veto that bill, they would then have another 10 days to try to override the veto. And lawmakers would have extra time to review an agreement if Obama does not submit an accord by 10 July.

During the nuclear talks, Iran's oil exports have been limited to 1mn-1.1mn b/d. Iran produced 2.8mn b/d in May and was tied with the UAE as Opec's third largest oil producer.