The US Congress is likely to wait until September to vote to approve or disapprove a nuclear deal with Iran, Senator Bob Corker told reporters on Monday evening.
Under a law signed by President Barack Obama earlier this year, Congress now has 60 days to review the deal with Iran which will lift sanctions in exchange for temporary constraints on Tehran's nuclear program. And that 60-day clock does not start until a number of documents, including certifications from the Director of National Intelligence, have been submitted to Capitol Hill, which could take several days, Politico reported.
"It'd be difficult to get here before the end of the week. And so then the 60-day clock would start. And then you'd have time when returning from August recess to still move (an Iran vote) across both floors," said Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Congress is expected to return from the August recess on September 8, which is 54 days from today.
That timeline means Corker and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce are likely to have until mid-September before voting on a motion of approval or disapproval for lifting economic sanctions on Iran, setting up late July as a period of probing hearings on the nuclear agreement Iran and major powers reached on Tuesday.
Corker met with Royce on Monday night to plot a bicameral schedule to dig into the deal and eventually vote on it, where opponents will need a veto-proof majority in both chambers to block the deal's implementation.
Corker called having the August recess a "good thing" because it allows lawmakers to deliberate the landmark deal between world powers and Iran during August before casting a decisive vote. He expects to call in top Obama administration negotiators for hearings to review the deal as well as independent experts.
