There is a strong likelihood that the enabling legislation to facilitate the US-India civilian nuclear agreement will be taken up by the Senate on Friday in the wake of Senator John Eric Ensign, Nevada Republican, removing his hold on the bill -- S. 3709 -- following changes made to the Title II provision -- also known as the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol.
But senior Congressional sources told rediff.com that even though the bill could be taken up on Friday, there is unlikely to be any debate on it and absolutely no vote because September 22 is a Jewish holiday marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.
"Even if it is taken up on Friday, it won't be finished on Friday," one source explained. "It could come up to the floor and just be the pending business, and it could be up there for debate only and nobody would be able to amend it," the sources said.
"Because of the Jewish holiday, they've announced there is going to be no votes on that day," the sources added.
But what is significant is that if the bill is taken up, it means debate and a vote on it -- probably next week -- would ensure that the full Senate would act on the legislation before it adjourns to prepare for the November Congressional elections on October 6.
Thus, if the legislation is voted on by the full committee and approved, the Senate and House conferees could begin working on ironing out any differences between the two versions and reach a compromise that could perhaps be signed by the president without the legislation having to be taken up by the Senate during the lame-duck session after the November elections.
Be it as it may, Ensign's decision to remove his hold on the bill -- authored by Senators Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, and Joe Biden, Delaware Democrat, chair and ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved it by an overwhelming 16-2 margin on June 29 -- was a major victory for the pro-India lobby comprising the Indian-American community and US industry and business that has been pushing for the legislation to be taken up by the full Senate, and supplementing the efforts of the Bush administration.
A senior aide to Ensign -- who had blocked the bill because he had problems with the Title II provision even though he strongly supported the US-India nuclear deal and was committed to the strategic partnership between both countries --told rediff.com that the Senator was happy with "the compromise language on the Title II protocol" that had been reached after negotiations with Lugar, the National Security Council and the State Department "and others members of the Senate."
The aide said that Ensign had worked out "certain changes like, for instance, not allowing people from terrorist countries (which he had earlier identified as Iran and North Korea) be members of the IAEA inspection team, inspecting our sensitive sites."
"These are the kinds of changes he felt were necessary to preserve the national security interests," the aide said and emphasised, "all the changes are just with Title II. We didn't touch the US-India nuclear deal part."
The aide acknowledged, "There were other changes too, (but) I mean they are highly technical dealing with the type of sampling that can be used and for what purposes and so on -- there are actually a whole series of modifications that were made, but most of it is highly technical."
"The entire thrust of the changes was trying to preserve national security interests of the United States. The US is a nuclear power. So it's not a question of when the IAEA comes to America, they are not searching for nuclear weapons -- we have them. A lot of the things they are doing for instance are for training purposes only or they are for civilian sites," the aide added.
"So what we wanted to make sure," the aide explained, "is that the language is written in such a way that intelligence services from other nations -- particularly these rogue nations -- wouldn't be able to get information that was harmful to our national security through these inspections."
Earlier, Ensign had been insistent that he would block the bill and not allow it to come for debate and a floor vote unless the Title II provision was removed.
Lugar on the day of the vote on June 29 said, in consultation with Biden, had "agreed to add an important piece of non-proliferation legislation to this bill as Title II."
He recalled then that "in 2004, the Senate ratified the IAEA Additional Protocol, but Congress has not passed implementing legislation that is required before the treaty can go into effect."
Lugar noted that President George W Bush had asked Congress to act on this issue, and that the SFRC had voted unanimously in favor in March. "Unfortunately, we have been unable to secure Senate passed by unanimous consent."
"At a time when the US is demanding that India complete and ratify the Additional Protocol as part of our civilian nuclear agreement and we are continuing to demand that Iran abide by its Additional Protocol, it is important that Congress complete its work," he argued.
Lugar also warned that continued failure to pass the bill would weaken America's standing and President Bush's leverage on these important issues.
Neither the Bush administration nor the government of India had any problem with the addition of this provision to S. 3709 -- even though New Delhi had concerns over a couple of other provisions in the legislation -- but suddenly found Ensign's hold threatening to throw a spanner into the entire machinery by not allowing the bill to be taken up for a vote.
On September 12, Ensign buttonholed while attending a Congressional reception hosted by the US-India Friendship Council for members of the Senate to urge them to support the bill and bring it up for a floor vote told rediff.com that he would vote 'yes' on the legislation, because "it is something that we very much support," but hoped to make sure that "certain things" -- code for the protocol -- "are separated from it."
Ensign's change of heart and his willingness to agree to a change of language, instead of insisting that Title II be dropped in its entirety or that he would not permit the bill to be taken up, was also apparently due to some intense lobbying by one of his most influential Indian-American constituents Dr R D Prabhu of Las Vegas.
On Tuesday night (September 19), Prabhu told rediff.com that Ensign had called him and informed him that he had decided to take the hold off on S. 3709.
"He told me that he's happy with the change in language and the bill will be taken up for a vote now," Prabhu said.
He said that he had met with Ensign earlier, "after I saw the article in India Abroad (the newspaper owned by rediff.com) that Ensign was putting a hold and I went and met with him last Monday (September 11) in Las Vegas before he went back to Washington and I told him that it is very important to us in the Indian-American community and you need to support this bill and not block it."
Prabhu said that Ensign had assured him that he was "a good friend of India and that he was in fact planning to visit India in December, but his plans had changed, but would go over there sometime next August and in fact, that he and some of his friends support an orphanage in South Asia -- 2,200 kids most of whom were orphaned after the tsunami."
"So he told me that he strongly supported the US-India partnership, but that his concern was the language in the bill and he somehow felt that the rogue states can get away with it," Prabhu added.
"After that meeting, I called him and also got some of my friends in Las Vegas to call him, and all of them urged him to support the bill and remove his hold. I had not only my doctor friends, but also administrators of multi-million dollar hospitals call him. So basically, he came around and yesterday, I got a call saying, 'It's a go.'," Prabhu added.
"So I am thrilled that our efforts have worked and the Senator is not going to block the deal, he is going to strongly support the deal, and I am confident that it is going to be approved overwhelmingly because there is bipartisan support for it because Senator (Bill) Frist (Senate Majority Leader and Tennessee Republican) and Senator (Harry) Reid(Senate Minority Leader and Nevada Democrat) have both said they will support it and bring it to the floor for a vote," Prabhu said.
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