Sponsors
The bill strengthens U.S. diplomatic leverage and clarifies sanctions policy regarding Venezuela while protecting executive flexibility, but it imposes economic costs on U.S. businesses and consumers and raises risks of increased regional instability and concentrated executive power.
U.S. policymakers and diplomats gain clearer legal and political tools to support Venezuelan voters and opposition leaders and to pressure the Maduro government, strengthening U.S. diplomatic leverage.
U.S. companies and citizens get clearer legal certainty that petroleum transactions with Maduro-aligned Venezuelan entities remain prohibited until a recognized transition, reducing risk of inadvertent violations and civil/criminal exposure.
The President retains a national-security waiver with required notice to Congress, preserving executive flexibility to respond to urgent U.S. interests while maintaining a degree of legislative oversight.
U.S. oil firms, service providers, and financial institutions face lost contracts, revenue, increased compliance costs, and potential penalties, and U.S. consumers risk higher fuel prices if permitted transaction restrictions reduce supply options.
Measures that increase pressure on the Maduro regime could provoke retaliatory actions or higher tensions with Venezuela, raising diplomatic risks and potential costs for U.S. interests.
Actions that escalate internal Venezuelan pressure could worsen instability and migration, complicating regional stability and increasing strain on migrants and U.S. border communities.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 27, 2025 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress January 27, 2025
Prohibits most U.S. persons from engaging in petroleum-related transactions involving Venezuela starting on the date the law is enacted, and keeps that prohibition in place until the President certifies that Nicolás Maduro’s regime has recognized the reported July 28, 2024 election winner (Edmundo González) and relinquished power to a legitimately elected or agreed transitional government. The prohibition blocks transactions that had been authorized by the October 2023 Barbados Agreement or by specific OFAC general licenses in effect the day before enactment, allows a presidential national security waiver with a written report to Congress, and authorizes Treasury (with State consultation) to implement regulations and use IEEPA authorities; violations carry IEEPA civil and criminal penalties.