Senate votes to allow lifting of sanctions
WASHINGTON — The Senate narrowly upheld a Treasury Department decision to lift sanctions from three companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
A vote Wednesday to move forward on a Democratic resolution that would have reversed Treasury’s decision failed 57-42, just short of the 60 votes needed. The vote came up short even though 11 Republicans voted with Democrats.
At issue is a December announcement from the Treasury Department that the U.S. would lift sanctions on the companies linked to Deripaska — Russian aluminum manufacturing giant Rusal, EN+ Group and the Russian power company JSC Eurosibenergo. EN+ Group is a holding company that owns nearly 50 percent of Rusal.
Congress had 30 days from the announcement to vote to block it, a deadline that expires Friday. The House is expected to vote Thursday on a similar resolution to block Treasury’s move.
“Mr. Deripaska has been key to much of the malign activities Russia directs against the United States, and the Congress must protect the American people against foreign interference and corruption,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD., said.
But the House’s action will prove symbolic considering the Senate vote.
The Treasury Department says the Russian companies have committed to separating from Deripaska, who will remain blacklisted as part of an array of measures announced in early April that targeted tycoons close to the Kremlin.
Treasury has warned that the sanctions could upset global aluminum markets or even prompt the Russian Deripaska
government to nationalize the company, thus shutting it out from any outside control.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the agreement didn’t relinquish enough of Deripaska’s control.
“For a very long time the Republican Party predicated its foreign policy on taking a tougher line against Russia and Putin,” Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote. “In so many campaigns for president, we Democrats were accused of not being tough enough on the Russians . ... It seems that acquiescence to the president, a fear of breaking with the president, has held back too many of my Republican colleagues from supporting this resolution.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell called the vote a “Democratic stunt.”