( CNN ) The outlines of a nuclear deal with Iran are in place . Unfortunately , it seems like too many in President Barack Obama 's administration have forgotten that the only reason this terrorist-supporting state came to the negotiating table in the first place was because of tough sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress . Indeed , the reality is that President Obama is giving up enormous leverage in his nuclear deal with Iran -- and I worry we will lose it for good . Bleeding money , and faced with falling oil prices , Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei gave his government rare permission to bargain with the `` Great Satan '' -- the United States . But just as U.S. and European sanctions were forcing Iran to the nuclear crossroads , President Obama has given Tehran an easy exit . For Khamenei , the `` framework '' announced last week looks like a win-win : He gets to keep his nuclear infrastructure , and in return gets billions of dollars in sanctions relief . Congress offered a better strategy when the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee , Eliot Engel , and I introduced a bill to hit Tehran with its toughest sanctions yet . Unfortunately , this bill -- which passed the House in a 400-20 vote -- was blocked in the Senate last year , despite the fact that it would have sharpened the Ayatollah 's choice : Dismantle your nuclear weapons program or see your economy collapse . President Obama once had a tougher line , when in 2012 he said : `` The deal we 'll accept is they end their nuclear program . It 's very straightforward . '' But the framework announced last week does nothing of the sort . Negotiated between Iran and the United States , Russia , China , Britain , France and Germany , the framework concedes that Iran can maintain `` a mutually defined enrichment program , '' operate thousands of centrifuges , and continue its research and development of nuclear technologies . The deal currently on the table would hand Tehran billions of previously sanctioned funds , filling the coffers of the world 's biggest state sponsor of terrorism , with strongholds in Syria , Iraq , Yemen and Lebanon . Meanwhile , the strictest restrictions on Iran 's enrichment will expire in only 10 years , despite the President receiving a letter from 367 Members of Congress -- both Democrats and Republicans -- in which we insisted that `` verifiable constraints on Iran 's nuclear program must last for decades . '' The President admitted as much when he conceded that `` in year 13 , 14 , 15 , they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly , and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero . '' But as bad as these concessions are , the most concerning aspect of the April 2 deal is that it lacks tough safeguards to stop Iran from cheating . The key question is this : Will the inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency be allowed to inspect these military sites without warning ? Because if the IAEA can not conduct `` anytime , anywhere '' inspections , Iran will be able to `` sneak out '' to a bomb . It has been done before . Remember , in 1994 , when President Bill Clinton told us he had struck a deal with North Korea that would `` make the United States , the Korean Peninsula , and the world safer '' ? President Clinton sounded a little too much like the current Secretary of State John Kerry , when he promised that the North Korea agreement `` does not rely on trust '' and that `` compliance will be certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency . '' Twelve years after these assurances , North Korea detonated its first nuclear bomb . Iran could easily do the same . The best predictor of its future behavior is its past behavior -- between 2004 and 2009 , the Iranian government built a huge centrifuge facility named Fordo under a mountain deep in the Iranian desert . Luckily for the world , Western intelligence agencies discovered Tehran 's deception . But we can not rely on such luck in the future , particularly when Iran still has n't come clean about its history of secret weapons development and is still dodging basic questions from the IAEA . Let 's not forget the other things Iran has been doing while its diplomats have been bargaining with the U.S. and its partners . While Iran was showing its friendly new face to the world , it has simultaneously been helping Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad kill his own people , training and funding the terrorist group Hezbollah , which aims to annihilate Israel , and supporting the Houthis , who started a civil war and overthrew the government in Yemen -- one of America 's more reliable counterterrorism partners in the region . If President Obama is going to hand over billions of dollars to a regime that behaves like this , run by a man who publicly declares : `` Death to America , '' it has to be a better deal . The framework we have before us keeps Iran 's nuclear door well and truly open .
Ed Royce : Best aspect of humanity 's future behavior is its past tense . New ##man keeps humanity 's nuclear door well and truly open , he says .