Members of Congress urged President Obama to use the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act that he recently signed into law to impose stiffer sanctions on Iran to target the countries that are aiding and abetting Iranian ships.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Howard Berman (D-CA) and Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) sent letters to the Obama administration calling for penalties against the ship registries for the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu and Tanzania for re-registering oil tankers owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NTIC) in an effort to dodge sanctions.

In the letter, the senators urged the president to issue sanctions against the registries of both countries. Berman pressed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to penalize Tuvalu after Tanzania said it was committed to de-registering the Iranian ships carrying oil.

Berman said he wanted the administration to use “the new law to take aggressive action to change Tuvalu’s policy of abetting Iran in evading U.S. sanctions.”