Senate passes Russia sanctions carrying 500 percent duties

The Senate passed H.R. 5334 by 86 to 11 on 7 August 2026, after striking section 1 of a House tax bill and inserting the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026” in its place.¹² Section 112 provides that “[n]ot later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, increase the rate of duty for all goods, including oil, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, petroleum, petroleum products, petrochemical products, coal, and coal products, imported into the United States from the Russian Federation to a rate of up to 500 percent ad valorem.”² Section 113 directs the same for “all goods imported into the United States from” certain third countries “to a rate of up to 100 percent ad valorem.”² The Senate then amended the title to read “An Act to impose sanctions and other measures with respect to the Russian Federation, as championed by the late Senator Lindsey O. Graham.”² The House has taken no recorded vote on the Senate amendment; its most recent roll call is No. 295 of 3 September.³

1. Congress is writing by statute the tariff power the Supreme Court held the President does not have by emergency. In February the Court held that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate … importation” does not authorise tariffs (see Supreme Court holds IEEPA does not authorise tariffs).⁴ Sections 112 and 113 are a direct grant instead: they say “the President shall,” they set ceilings rather than conditions, and each opens “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”²⁴

2. The chamber was asked to remove the third-country duty and declined by two to one. Senator Paul’s amendment 6715, “[t]o strike the provision relating to duties on countries that purchase Russian-origin crude oil or natural gas or facilitate sanctions evasion,” was rejected 32-64 on the day of passage.⁵ Section 113 reaches a country that made new purchases of Russian crude or gas and “was among the 5 largest importers, by total volume” of it in the preceding twelve months, or “was among the top 5 countries facilitating Russian oil sanctions evasion” in the same period.²

3. The mandate is written as a command and unwound by certification. Section 115 lets the President “waive the application of any sanctions provision with respect to a foreign person, any restriction with respect to a person, or any duty under this title” on a written certification to Congress that the waiver “is in the national interests of the United States,” with a report explaining the basis.² Termination under section 117 is narrower: it requires certification that the Russian Federation has both “signed a peace agreement that is accepted by the free and independent Government of Ukraine” and “ceased all military hostilities against” Ukraine, the two set out as separate subparagraphs.²

4. The vehicle was a childhood-educator tax bill, and part of it survived the transplant. H.R. 5334 was introduced on 11 September 2025 and passed the House on 27 April 2026 as a measure “to allow early childhood educators to take the educator expense deduction.”⁶ The Senate did not discard it: the sanctions became Division A and the original text remains as Division B, “Supporting Early-Childhood Educators’ Deductions.”² Section 203 sunsets Division A five years after enactment but carves out section 201, which extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 from 2026 to 2031, so the Iran extension outlives the Russia sanctions it travelled with.²