Rice sends roadmap to Hill on how to get past hurdles in n-Bill

From dilution of certain provisions to asking Congress to drop some elements, Rice has been very specific in her five-page letter. She made it clear to the Senate that the insistence on “annual certification” of India’s compliance to its various committments will create “annual tensions” with India as it signals “a lack of permanence in the deal”.

The initial discussions of the Conference are already underway — the Senate chose its six nominees today — and this letter comes days ahead of the formal conference on Wednesday. The reconciled version will be put to vote on December 7 and 8.

• Senate Bill, Section 106: Bans transfer of technologies related to enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production.

Rice: “It is not appropriate to single out India, which has been a responsible steward of its nuclear technology. We request that the Senate defer to the House Bill, which does not include such a limitation”. Or else, she suggests the Senate can ask for prior intimation ahead of any such transfer.

• House Bill Section 4(d)(3): Triggers automatic sanction by cutting off all nuclear cooperation in case India violates guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or the Missile Technology Control Regime.

Rice: “This would harm US-India relations and the cooperative NSG and MTCR regimes. The regimes set policy guidelines rather than legal prohibitions and operate by consensus, making it difficult to determine and agree on violations...we request the House to defer to the Senate, which does not include a similar provision”.

She gives an alternative that the provision could also be moved to the “Sense of Congress” section or turned into a reporting requirement as neither of these sections directly impact the implementation of the n-deal.

• House Bill Section 4(d) (2): Requires US to make political commitments in the NSG that it will not allow fuel supplies to India if it violates NSG guidelines.

... contd.