Sachin Kalbag & Uttara Choudhury.
WASHINGTON DC: The India-US nuclear pact moved a step closer to fruition with the way being cleared for the US Senate to consider its version of the historic bill endorsed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The House cleared legislation to amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 by an unambiguous 359-68 vote, thus facilitating the sale of nuclear technology to India.
The bill, which will now come up in the Senate after its five-week summer recess beginning July 29, proposes amendment of section 123 of the act.
Joseph Crowley, chief deputy whip of the Democratic Party in the House and former chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, told DNA that he expected the Senate vote to go in favour of the deal.
“It is hard to gauge the sentiment of the entire Senate,” Crowley said, “but I feel the voting pattern could be very similar to that in the House.” Congress wants a strong relationship with India, he said.
The Senate bill was introduced last week by Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. On June 29, the 18-member committee had voted 16-2 in favour of the bill.
Unlike the House bill, which had 35 co-sponsors, the Senate bill has only Lugar. But that is not expected to hamper its chances. The 100-member Senate has a 35-member Caucus on India. The caucus includes Hillary Clinton, Trent Lott, Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, and Arlen Specter.
The House bill, which will now be named after Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee and its chief author, was debated for over six hours, with six amendments being proposed.
Two of those were emphatically defeated as they were considered killer amendments by Hyde and the bill’s co-author Tom Lantos.
Lantos, ranking Democratic member of the International Relations Committee, said, “This is no ordinary vote. It is a tidal shift in US-India relations. This will be known as the day when Congress signalled definitively the end of the Cold War paradigm governing interactions between New Delhi and Washington.”
After the Senate votes on the bill, the Bush administration will wait for India’s negotiations with the IAEA on implementing additional safeguards on civilian nuclear reactors to be completed.
