Howard Berman: “I'd like to commend Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member Lantos and their excellent staffs for their hard work on his…”

“I'd like to commend Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member Lantos and their excellent staffs for their hard work on his legislation. I'd like to offer special thanks for their efforts to ensure that the conference agreement retains a provision I suggested, which would halt nuclear cooperation if the Indian government exports sensitive technologies that violate the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime. This conference agreement--and the underlying nuclear deal with India--are far from perfect. I believe the Administration could have and should have pressed for a much better deal. But having said that, it's important to keep in mind that this agreement is a major improvement over the Administration's original legislative proposal. That bill would have cut Congress out of the process and put the nuclear deal with India on auto-pilot. Among other things, this agreement preserves the right of Congress to vote on the final nuclear cooperation agreement with India--which is still under negotiation--before it goes into effect. While I wish this conference agreement included some stronger nonproliferation provisions--including an amendment on fissile material I offered on the floor--I intend to vote ``yes'' because I believe the U.S.-India relationship is extremely important, and rejecting the bill at this point would be a major setback.”