Congress to Consider Indian Nuclear Deal This Week

U.S. lawmakers plan to meet this week to resolve differences in the House and Senate bills enabling the U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal, Environment and Energy Daily reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 1).

Senate Majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has placed the deal on a list of items to be addressed in the lame duck session of Congress.

Legislators in the two houses passed their versions of the legislation by wide majorities, but created some amendments that the Bush administration has criticized.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a letter to congressional leaders last week urging them to remove some provisions which she said could undermine the deal.

Under the agreement reached last year, the United States would sell nuclear reactors and materials to India in exchange for New Delhi opening its civilian nuclear facilities to international monitoring.  The deal would require exempting India from longstanding U.S. and international nonproliferation rules.

Rice particularly criticized congressional efforts to require the executive branch to report frequently on India’s nuclear nonproliferation policies.

Such “unduly burdensome” reporting, her letter says, “will create annual tensions with India because, whether or not intended, it signals to India a lack of permanence in the deal and could add commercial complications for U.S. industry” (Mary O’Driscoll, Environment and Energy Daily, Dec. 4).

Meanwhile, a large delegation of U.S. business leaders visited India last week in anticipation of the nuclear trade breakthrough, the Associated Press reported.

A 240-member delegation featured executives from nuclear industry powerhouses General Electric, Westinghouse and Thorium Power Inc.

“We hope to be the initial suppliers for the new plants,” said William Cummins, vice president of Westinghouse Electric Co. 

Cummins said his firm might have an edge in India over competitor General Electric because Westinghouse has already received U.S. regulatory approval for third-generation power reactors (Rajesh Mahapatra, Associated Press/San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 1).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.