House Committee approves bill to implement Indo-US nuke deal

WASHINGTON: US lawmakers on Tuesday strongly backed the groundbreaking civil nuclear agreement with India in the first congressional test vote since the agreement was announced nearly one year ago.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee voted on the agreement with 37 representatives in favour of the deal and just five against. This sends a positive signal as the bill heads for a vote in the full House next month.

The powerful 40-member House International Relations Committee pored over a 24-page bipartisan bill sponsored by committee chair Henry Hyde, ranking member Tom Lantos, Republican Congresswoman Ilena Ros Lehtinen, and New York Democrat Gary Ackerman.

"This is a historic hearing," said Lantos. "In terms of the impact of this legislation on the new geo-strategic alignment between India and the US for the balance of the 21st century, the importance of this legislation cannot be overstated."

During the legislative mark-up of the bill, Lantos made it clear that "Congress will be required to vote a second time" after it reviews the safeguards agreement that is being negotiated between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group as well as the final bilateral agreement dubbed the 123 Agreement.

The revised bill approved by the panel lays out a more extensive supervisory role for Congress. "The original bill was conceived in a profoundly unsatisfactory manner," said Hyde while backing supervision and review provisions in the bill.

Hyde emphasised that the earlier bill introduced by the Bush administration was "profoundly unsatisfactory" because it removed Congress's overseeing role. "I would caution the administration to pay close attention to congressional concerns," he said.

House members were invited to offer their own changes to the broad bill, but Lantos blocked nuclear deal breakers by setting a realistic agenda to facilitate India-US nuclear cooperation. "Amendments that seek fundamental changes to the terms of the deal worked out by the US and India will be opposed," he told the panel.

At least six controversial amendments that could have wrecked the deal were thumbed down by voice votes. An amendment asking for annual reports on the status of India's separation and breakdown of nuclear and military facilities was accepted by voice vote. The bill also noted that the US will not accept any spent nuclear waste from India's civilian reactors.

"This amendment adds value to the existing bill because it will give us a very clear breakdown of future civil energy and military facilities," said Lantos.

The House version attaches tougher conditions than the original bill. Far from seeking a blanket lifting of the nuclear embargo against India, it calls for limited civilian nuclear commerce, tightly regulated by export-licensing requirements.

With the panel endorsing the bill and sending a positive signal, the nuclear agreement will now go for a vote to the full House, possibly next month after the July recess. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the chief US negotiator of the deal, has predicted easy passage of the bill.

"I'm not going to be so rash, perhaps foolish, to predict a vote count, but we are very confident that we have majority support in the House and Senate," he said after extensive discussions with congressional leaders.

The Senate International Relations Committee will take up its own version of the bill on Thursday. The bill enjoys broad, bipartisan support in the Senate.