Political Quotes

“I rise in support of H.R. 5682, the U.S.- India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006, which the Committee on International Relations ordered reported by a vote of 37-5 on June 28. This, therefore, is truly a bipartisan effort. This bill is based on the administration's original proposal, H.R. 4974, which Mr. Lantos and I introduced last fall at the request of Secretary Rice. Current law does not permit civil nuclear trade with India. That legislation would have authorized the President to waive a number of provisions of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, to allow him to negotiate an agreement establishing civil nuclear cooperation with India. This agreement will permit the U.S. to sell technology to India for nuclear power development. In return, India will open up for inspection its civilian nuclear program to international inspections and also agree not to test nuclear weapons and abide by nuclear export controls. H.R. 5682 takes the President's bill as a starting point and amends it in several key ways. The most important of these is that the process of congressional consideration has been reversed, meaning that the agreement cannot go into effect unless Congress approves it. This seemingly small change actually has great ramifications for the role of Congress as it ensures that we will retain a substantive role in the negotiation and implementation of this historic and far-reaching agreement.…”