India, U.S. Plan Push on Atomic Agreement in Congress

Reuters

By Viola Gienger and Jonathan Tirone

September 7, 2008

The Bush administration and business interests that overturned a three-decade international ban on India's right to buy nuclear-energy supplies will take their campaign to Congress this week.

India won the right to buy atomic-energy equipment after a group of 45 nuclear-technology supplying countries yesterday granted a waiver for sales to the South Asian nation outside the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Nuclear Suppliers Group awarded the exemption after meeting for more than four days and following months of phone calls and arm-twisting.

The Indian government and ``a number of delegations that worked very closely with us'' made the victory possible, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters traveling with her yesterday on an unrelated tour of North Africa. She spoke with Chinese officials on the day of the agreement and called others during her trip, including Irish and Austrian officials.

The Bush administration hopes U.S. companies such as General Electric Co. can compete for the business and aims to persuade Congress to ratify an agreement reached with India to allow the sales. Until then, the waiver means France's Areva SA, Russia's Rosatom Corp. and Japan's Toshiba Corp. can get a head start.

Congress, which starts its next session tomorrow, may not have time to consider and endorse the nuclear cooperation agreement before it adjourns on Sept. 26, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, a California Democrat, wrote in an Aug. 5 letter to Rice.

Testing Moratorium

The suppliers group was swayed by promises that India will keep its moratorium on nuclear-bomb testing, which brought on the ban in the first place. India says it needs atomic fuels and technologies to help power an economy that has grown more than 8 percent annually since 2003.

The U.S.-India Business Council, which advocated the nuclear accord, issued a statement saying it will lobby for congressional approval. The council cited votes of 359-68 in the House and 85- 12 in the Senate at the end of its session in 2006 to approve the Hyde Act, which laid the groundwork for the agreement.

``Before we vote, Congress needs to study the NSG decision, along with any agreements that were made behind the scenes to bring it about,'' Berman said in an e-mailed statement today. ``The Burden of proof is on the Bush administration so that Congress can be assured that what we're being asked to approve conforms with U.S. law.''

Committee Chairmen

Rice said she talked with 12 committee chairmen in the weeks before the NSG decision to urge them to approve the accord.

``I'll have those conversations again most likely Monday or Tuesday as well as trying to see whether the leadership believes that this can go forward,'' Rice told reporters today at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in the Algerian capital Algiers. ``I don't think most people thought we were going to be able to get this through the NSG this weekend.''

Opposing groups such as the Washington-based Arms Control Association decried the suppliers group decision and said they'd press Congress to oppose the agreement without stronger conditions. The NSG waiver isn't likely to pass the tests set out in the Hyde Act, the association said.

The suppliers group decision ``erodes the credibility of global efforts to ensure that access to peaceful nuclear trade and technology is available only to those states that meet global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament standards,'' Daryl Kimball, executive director of the ACA, said in an e- mailed analysis yesterday.

Arms Control

``The Arms Control Association and our allies and supporters will work to ensure that the current congressional requirements and expectations'' are addressed, Kimball wrote.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain hailed the NSG decision, saying he'd supported the U.S.-India accord ``early on and without equivocation.''

``Now that the NSG has approved it, congressional leaders should act expeditiously to pass the U.S.-India nuclear agreement here at home,'' he said in a statement yesterday.

Indian officials praised the NSG waiver, which ``marks the end of India's decades-long isolation from the nuclear mainstream and of the technology denial regime,'' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. He signed the outlines of the trade accord with President George W. Bush in 2006 in anticipation of winning the agreement of opponents in his own parliament, the NSG and the U.S. Congress.

New Chapter

``This constitutes a major landmark in our quest for energy security,'' Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in televised comments. ``This decision will open a new chapter in India's cooperation with other countries in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.''

Bush and Singh congratulated each other on the NSG decision when they spoke by telephone yesterday, said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

General Electric, the world's biggest maker of energy- generation equipment, said Aug. 25 that it may lose contracts in India to French, Russian and Japanese rivals if the U.S. Congress doesn't ratify the U.S.-India nuclear deal soon after the agreement wins approval from the suppliers group.

Rice said the U.S. has talked to India about the potential competitive disadvantage.

``I think they recognize and appreciate American leadership on this issue,'' she said. ``Because of that, I think we'll have ways to talk to them about not disadvantaging American companies.''

Still, she said ``the best thing would be to get it through Congress.''