Bill Sponsor
House Bill 2790
116th Congress(2019-2020)
Our Obligation to Recognize American Heroes (OORAH) Act of 2019
Introduced
Introduced
Introduced in House on May 16, 2019
Overview
Text
Introduced in House 
May 16, 2019
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Introduced in House(May 16, 2019)
May 16, 2019
About Linkage
Multiple bills can contain the same text. This could be an identical bill in the opposite chamber or a smaller bill with a section embedded in a larger bill.
Bill Sponsor regularly scans bill texts to find sections that are contained in other bill texts. When a matching section is found, the bills containing that section can be viewed by clicking "View Bills" within the bill text section.
Bill Sponsor is currently only finding exact word-for-word section matches. In a future release, partial matches will be included.
H. R. 2790 (Introduced-in-House)


116th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2790


To make additional financial assets of the Government of Iran available to pay compensatory damages to the victims of terrorism sponsored by that Government, and for other purposes.


IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 16, 2019

Mr. Pence (for himself and Mr. Gallego) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned


A BILL

To make additional financial assets of the Government of Iran available to pay compensatory damages to the victims of terrorism sponsored by that Government, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Our Obligation to Recognize American Heroes (OORAH) Act of 2019 ”.

SEC. 2. Expansion of availability of financial assets of Iran to victims of terrorism.

(a) Findings.—Congress makes the following findings:

(1) On October 23, 1983, terrorists sponsored by the Government of Iran bombed the United States Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The terrorists killed 241 servicemen and injured scores more.

(2) Those servicemen were killed or injured while on a peacekeeping mission.

(3) Terrorism sponsored by the Government of Iran threatens the national security of the United States.

(4) The United States has a vital interest in ensuring that members of the Armed Forces killed or injured by such terrorism, and the family members of such members, are able to seek justice.

(b) Amendments.—Section 502 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (22 U.S.C. 8772) is amended—

(1) in subsection (a)(1)—

(A) in subparagraph (A), by striking “in the United States” and inserting “by or”;

(B) in subparagraph (B), by inserting “, or an asset that would be blocked if the asset were located in the United States,” after “unblocked)”; and

(C) in the flush text at the end—

(i) by inserting after “in aid of execution” the following: “, or to an order directing that the asset be brought to the State in which the court is located and subsequently to execution or attachment in aid of execution,”; and

(ii) by inserting “, without regard to concerns relating to international comity” after “resources for such an act”;

(2) in subsection (b)—

(A) by striking “that are identified” and inserting the following: “that are—

“(1) identified”;

(B) by striking the period at the end and inserting “; and”; and

(C) by adding at the end the following:

“(2) identified in and the subject of proceedings in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Peterson et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran et al., Case No. 13 Civ. 9195 (LAP).”;

(3) by striking subsection (e);

(4) by redesignating subsections (c) and (d) as subsections (d) and (e), respectively; and

(5) by inserting after subsection (b) the following:

“(c) Personal jurisdiction.—For purposes of this section, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York shall have personal jurisdiction over any foreign securities intermediary that credited financial assets described in subsection (b) to an account the intermediary holds outside the United States.”.