[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1315-E1317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  A RESPONSIBLE APPROACH TO EXPANDING AMERICA'S FRIENDSHIP WITH INDIA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DAVID E. PRICE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 28, 2006

  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to affirm the 
critical importance of our Nation's friendship with India and to add my 
name as a cosponsor to H.R. 5682, legislation implementing the U.S.-
India Civilian Nuclear Agreement concluded earlier this year.
  Our friendship with India is among the most important bilateral 
relationships for our Nation's security and prosperity. The world's 
largest democracy, India is a vital partner in many different arenas: 
fighting the war on terrorism, expanding and advancing both the U.S. 
and Indian economies, modeling responsible democratic government to 
other regions of the world, addressing climate change and other key 
environmental challenges, and crafting a productive relationship with 
an emerging China, to name a few.
  It is also a nation with which we share many common characteristics, 
making it a natural friend and ally. Both nations emerged from British 
rule to become flourishing democracies, each giving political voice and 
representation to hundreds of millions of citizens and each serving as 
a beacon of democratic values and human rights to the rest of the 
world. Both nations share a tremendous diversity of ethnicity and 
religion, and despite periodic setbacks, both have found sustainable 
and just models for drawing strength from this diversity. The United 
States and India have, in the last decade, forged increasingly intimate 
linkages economically, as India has emerged as one of the fastest 
growing free markets in the world. And, of course, our Nation has 
welcomed a large and vibrant community of Indian-Americans to our 
shores, a community that has immeasurably enriched the fabric of 
American life.
  Unfortunately, our friendship with India over the last three decades 
has not been as strong as it should be. It is the only democracy with 
which our Nation had poor relations through most of the cold war. In 
2000, President Clinton ushered in a new era in our bilateral 
relationship, becoming the first President to visit India since 
President Carter. But that positive momentum stalled in the early years 
of the Bush administration, as the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, 
terrorist attacks unsettled South Asian relationships and India-
Pakistan tensions increased.
  The primary obstacle to a stronger relationship remains India's 
nuclear program. In 1974, India defied the world by conducting a 
nuclear weapons test, demonstrating that it had developed nuclear 
weapons capability outside the bounds of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty. From that day forward, India has remained outside nuclear 
nonproliferation regimes and has faced international sanctions and lack 
of access to civilian nuclear materials and technology.
  The price of its defiance--thirty-two years of sanctions and 
prohibitions--has not forced India to give up its nuclear weapons 
program or to make any discernible policy changes. The reality is, 
despite the best efforts of the international community to limit 
nuclear proliferation, India is and will continue to be a nuclear 
weapons state. Moreover, it is a stable, responsible nuclear weapons 
state that poses no threat to our national security. It is both unfair 
and unwise to continue to treat India as an international pariah. The 
time has come to recognize reality and adjust our outdated policies 
toward one of our most important allies.

  The U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement, as a first step toward 
recalibrating our policies toward India, holds great promise for 
bringing our two nations closer together. Characteristically, President 
Bush has negotiated without adequately engaging Congress and the 
international community. But he has correctly recognized the need for 
this landmark policy shift.
  The agreement itself is a greatly-needed improvement over current 
policies, yet the details of the agreement pose some questions and 
challenges for our national security. The agreement has both negative 
and positive features, and the American people need to be aware of the 
full array of consequences as we proceed.
  The most critical entry on the positive side of the ledger must be 
the agreement's impact on our relationship with India. This improved 
relationship will strengthen our national security in a variety of 
ways, particularly by enhancing our partnership in the global war on 
terrorism and in our efforts to forge a productive relationship with an 
emerging China. Our role as a world leader in confronting several 
global moral crises--like poverty, hunger, and HIV/AIDS--will also be 
enhanced, as the improved relationship will allow the United States to 
bring greater attention to efforts to improve the lot of India's 600 
million poor people. Indeed, the accelerated economic development 
anticipated as a result of expanded civilian nuclear energy production 
will hopefully lift millions of people out of poverty and into 
prosperity.
  The agreement also has the potential to enhance our efforts to 
prevent nuclear proliferation around the world. Currently, India's 
large nuclear program is subject to only limited safeguards. Therefore, 
bringing any additional part

[[Page E1316]]

of its nuclear program under the International Atomic Energy Agency's 
safeguards and inspections regime will be positive. Perhaps more 
importantly, we can reasonably hope that, upon entering the community 
of responsible nuclear-weapons states, India will set aside its 
historic resistance to nonproliferation regimes and join us in fighting 
nuclear proliferation around the world.
  The agreement likewise could have some adverse consequences. Let us 
examine the facts:
  Eight of India's nuclear power reactors and 9,000 kilograms of spent 
nuclear fuel--enough to produce more than 1,000 nuclear weapons--will 
not be placed under any type of international safeguards or inspections 
regime. India will also have the flexibility to designate any reactors 
built in the future as part of its military program, keeping them out 
of international inspections regimes.
  Civilian nuclear cooperation could free India to devote more 
resources to its nuclear weapons program; by purchasing fissile 
material from the U.S. and other suppliers for its civilian reactors, 
India could choose to use more of its native uranium stocks for its 
weapons program.

  The agreement could send a dangerously mixed message to other non-
nuclear weapons states, namely, that they are expected not to develop a 
nuclear weapons program but, if they do, they could be rewarded with a 
Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. This mixed signal is especially harmful 
at a time when we are confronting reckless proliferation by Iran and 
North Korea.
  These are serious concerns that have the potential to harm our 
national security. They are concerns that must be addressed in some 
fashion before we move forward.
  Examining both sides of the ledger, I come to three conclusions:
  First, the American people should not be under any illusions: this 
agreement is a strategic trade-off involving a significant element of 
risk. It states that we are willing to sacrifice some progress on the 
nonproliferation front in order to achieve broader benefits to our 
national security as a result of an enhanced U.S.-India friendship and 
cooperation.
  Second, Congress must enact this agreement because a rejection of it 
would set back U.S.-India relations immeasurably. For the precise 
reasons I have cited in stating that a strong U.S.-India relationship 
is critical, a weakened relationship would be disastrous.
  Finally, Congress must find a way to navigate between these two 
realities. We must minimize the risks associated with the gamble the 
agreement represents while maximizing its potential for strengthening 
U.S.-Indian cooperation. In other words, Congress's active engagement 
in refining and strengthening the agreement is essential.
  I rise today to cosponsor the implementing legislation accompanying 
the agreement because I have gained assurances that Congress will play 
such an active role. I am particularly encouraged by two recent 
developments.
  First, the Bush administration and House leaders have agreed to a 
two-stage process in ratifying the agreement. Congress will first vote 
on H.R. 5682, the legislation I am cosponsoring, which will provide the 
President the authority to waive provisions of the Atomic Energy Act of 
1954 to allow civilian nuclear cooperation with India. Later, after 
agreements have been reached with the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the 
International Atomic Energy Agency, Congress will vote on a specific 
U.S.-India bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. If our concerns are 
not sufficiently addressed in these three additional agreements, the 
second stage will allow Congress to put on the brakes.
  Secondly, I am encouraged by the significant steps the House 
International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee have taken to refine the legislation and fill in important 
details. Both Committees have signaled that they will not simply 
rubber-stamp the President's proposal, but that they will conduct due 
diligence and ensure that the legislation implementing the agreement 
guarantees our national security. This commitment is embodied in H.R. 
5682, which represents a tremendous improvement and refinement of the 
draft legislation originally submitted by the President.

  Mr. Speaker, I am cosponsoring this legislation to signal my belief 
in its importance and to aid in its forward movement. But I also want 
to underscore the importance of the next steps to be taken by this 
body. I rise today to urge my colleagues to focus upon several key 
considerations as we continue our consideration of the bill.
  First, the final legislation must challenge India to take its 
commitment against nuclear testing seriously. India has refused to sign 
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and has only pledged to withhold 
nuclear testing in the absence of a provocation from another nation. As 
the 2002 showdown between India and Pakistan demonstrated, any nuclear 
tests by India will have a destabilizing effect on the region and could 
damage our national security. The current draft allows the President to 
terminate the agreement if India conducts a nuclear test, and it is 
essential that this provision remain in the final legislation.
  Second, the agreement must provide for some reasonable transparency 
over the use of India's native fissile material and spent nuclear fuel. 
As India begins to import nuclear material for use in civilian 
reactors, its native material stocks will become fungible, free for use 
in producing nuclear weapons. Its spent nuclear fuel stocks, not 
subject to international monitoring under the agreement, will also be 
available for use in nuclear weapons. Clearly, our civilian nuclear 
cooperation should not be used as a means for India to accelerate its 
nuclear weapons development. The current legislation contains a 
provision that will alert us if India is taking advantage of the 
nuclear cooperation agreement to fuel a nuclear arms race. Of course, 
we will depend heavily on our intelligence community to assess India's 
production of nuclear weapons, and we must ensure that they have the 
personnel and resources they require.
  Third, we must strongly urge India to cease the production of fissile 
material explicitly for use in nuclear weapons. For over a decade, the 
international community has been working toward the negotiation of a 
Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty that would ban the production of new 
fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive 
devices. India's endorsement of such a treaty would significantly allay 
the concerns about the agreement's impact on nuclear nonproliferation 
efforts. Our nation should also be urging India's nuclear neighbors, 
Pakistan and China, to sign such a treaty in order to provide India the 
assurances that it can do so without endangering its national security.
  Fourth, the deal must be conditioned on the conclusion of an 
acceptable agreement between India and the International Atomic Energy 
Agency. The negotiations between these parties are ongoing. An 
acceptable outcome would have to include an acceptance by India of a 
permanent safeguards regime that requires the same transparency, the 
same access, and the same type of inspections that other countries 
admit under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The legislation 
contains some helpful provisions in this regard; however, we must 
remain engaged after the passage of this legislation to ensure that the 
negotiations meet our standards.
  Finally, Congress and the Bush administration can strengthen the 
U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement by working together to enhance 
and expand nuclear nonproliferation efforts in other regions of the 
world. Our national security depends greatly on keeping the worst 
weapons, nuclear weapons of mass destruction, out of the worst hands, 
those of fundamentalist terrorists who target our nation. Ensuring 
adequate protections against proliferation in the U.S.-India agreement 
is a key component of this priority, but it does not end there.
  As we work to bring India in line with international standards for 
nuclear responsibility, we should also be accelerating programs that 
increase nuclear security elsewhere. One of the most critical programs 
is the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program that secures 
loose nuclear material and technology in the former Soviet Union, where 
enough nuclear material to produce thousands of nuclear weapons remains 
unsecured. As the 9-11 Commission's Final Report rightly noted, ``the 
government should weigh the value of this investment against the 
catastrophic cost America would face should such weapons find their way 
to the terrorists who are so anxious to acquire them.''
  Of equal importance, the administration and Congress must strengthen 
our dismally ineffective efforts to confront Iran and North Korea as 
those nations defy the world. One of this Administration's single most 
dangerous failures has been to allow North Korea to proliferate freely 
for five years without crafting any viable strategy for confronting the 
world's worst proliferator. And the Administration's strategy to rein 
in Iran has been scarcely better, allowing the situation to continue 
unresolved for far too long. As long as these two rogue nations freely 
seek nuclear weapons, weapons they could easily sell or transfer to 
terrorists, our nation cannot be secure.
  The U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement is a dramatic departure 
from the past. We must not enter into it with any illusions that it is 
without risk; however, I believe it holds the potential to make our 
nation and the world safer and more secure. We have the opportunity to 
build a strong and lasting friendship with the world's largest 
democracy, one of the world's fastest growing markets, and a nation 
from which we have remained estranged for far too long. We should not 
let such a tremendous opportunity pass by. At the same time, we must 
proceed responsibly, ensuring that we minimize the risks inherent in 
the agreement. I believe Congress is taking

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seriously its responsibility to do so, and I look forward to working 
with my colleagues to craft legislation that makes our Nation stronger 
and forges a new era in U.S.-Indian relations.

                          ____________________