New twist with RCM and their parent holding company, Rio Tinto, which owns a stake in the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia with the Iran Foreign Investment Company (IFIC). Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) proposed changing the bill to prevent any land exchange with a company or affiliate connected with the IFIC.

"The Iran Foreign Investment Company is wholly owned by the Iranian regime, and last summer the Treasury Department added it to the list of Iranian entities in violation of sanctions law," Deutch said. "Quite simply, we are about to reward a company that partners with the Iranian regime to mine, of all things, the uranium it needs to become a nuclear-armed power."

Republicans had no direct reply to the Democrats' charge, and in a brief response, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) argued that nothing in the law would prevent the U.S. from enforcing sanctions laws.

Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world," McCain said in a statement Friday afternoon. "I respectfully disagree with the President: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.