Byron Dorgan: “I will try not to take the 2 minutes, but it is important to point out the chairman, in responding--and I suspect the…”

“I will try not to take the 2 minutes, but it is important to point out the chairman, in responding--and I suspect the ranking member in his response--is saying this is a killer amendment. It is not offered as a killer amendment, but it is the case that my amendment would impose upon India exactly the same burdens that exist upon our country. My colleague, the chairman, said the President ``did not negotiate''--he started the sentence. That is what brings me to the floor--that the President ``did not negotiate.'' What he did not negotiate was a requirement and a burden on India which clearly is a nuclear weapons state. He did not negotiate a requirement and a burden on them that we ourselves assume under the nonproliferation treaty. My amendment would simply provide that requirement and that burden to the country of India. I come from a town of 300 people. I have to relearn always the lessons of the Senate--and not just the Senate but the way the Government works. In my hometown you always call things just the way they are. You saw it, you spoke it, and described it. In this body, however, now we know that India has a nuclear weapon--has many of them. We know they have detonated them, and we know they are a nuclear weapons state. So we have decided as a country officially to describe India as a responsible state with nuclear technology as opposed to a nuclear weapons state. I don't know; maybe it works here. It doesn't work in my hometown.”