For these reasons, the US Congress has legislated that the procedure will be the opposite of what the Bush Administration had proposed. The 123 Agreement will come into force only if the Congress — if each House of the US Congress, separately — passes a specific ‘Resolution of Approval’ within 90 days of the agreement being submitted to it. If such a resolution is not passed, the agreement will not come into force. That the vote on the resolution will not be just a blind one; that the Congress will make sure that the 123 Agreement fulfils the conditions it has prescribed in the Act, is evident from the foregoing passages itself — the Congress is determined to “influence the terms of the agreement,” it is determined to see that the Administration does not whittle down its power of oversight. The point is put beyond doubt by what the explanatory statement proceeds to say: “However, any such agreement cannot enter into force until it has been submitted to the Congress, along with a completed IAEA-India safeguards agreement and other documents and presidential determinations such as a Nuclear Proliferation Assessment (required by the AEA and by this legislation, as detailed in the section-by-section review of this report), and approved by both Houses according to the existing procedures of Section 130(i) of the AEA.”

Is the Congress insisting on these documents just to enable senators to write articles? Is it anybody’s case that the Congress will approve an agreement that the US President enters into even though that agreement skips past and thus violates a law the Congress has itself passed?

... contd.