House Panel Advances Proposed Sanctions Bureau at State Department

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a State Department reauthorization bill Sept. 18 that would consolidate the State Department’s sanctions activities into a new Sanctions Policy Bureau led by an assistant secretary for sanctions policy (see 2509110039).

The bureau head would "lead State's sanctions programs and coordinate with other agencies and allies to advance U.S. interests through sanctions policy," the committee said.

During its markup of the bill, the committee approved amendments that would:

• Prohibit major arms sales to Turkey that harm Israel’s qualitative military edge
• Restrict the president's ability to pause arms sales to Israel
• Require development of a strategy to prevent illegal firearms trafficking to the Caribbean
• Raise the congressional notification thresholds for arms sales to adjust for inflation and geopolitical changes
• Increase the congressional notification threshold for exports of firearms controlled under Category I of the U.S. Munitions List
• Require the development of a strategy to better use multinational procurements for Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales
• State it's no longer U.S. policy that the Missile Technology Control Regime's presumption of denial applies to NATO, major non-NATO allies and Five Eyes countries
• Clarify that the expedited export license review process under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) security partnership also applies to reexports, retransfers, temporary imports and brokering activities.

The bill now heads to the House floor for consideration. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not announced a comparable markup, though its leaders have introduced several versions of a State Department reauthorization bill as potential amendments to the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which is pending on the Senate floor.