United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act

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The Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006, also called a 123 Agreement, is a bilateral pact between the United States and India under which the U.S. will provide access to civilian nuclear technology and access to nuclear fuel in exchange for IAEA-safeguards on civilian Indian reactors.

1 Agreement
2 Passage
3 Background
4 Criticism
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Agreement

On March 2nd in New Delhi, George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh signed a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, following an initiation during the July 2005 summit in Washington between the two leaders over civilian nuclear cooperation.^[1]

Heavily endorsed by the White House, the agreement is thought to be a major victory to George W. Bush's foreign policy initiative and was described by many lawmakers as a cornerstone of the new strategic partnership between the two countries.^[2] The agreement is widely considered to help India fulfill its soaring energy demands and enter the U.S. and India into a strategic partnership. The Pentagon speculates this will help ease global demand for crude oil and natural gas.

[edit] Passage

On December 18th, George W. Bush signed the Act into law. The Act was passed by an overwhelming 359-68 in the United States House of Representatives on July 26th and by 85-12 in the United States Senate on Nov 16th in a strong show of bipartisan support.^[3]^[4]^[5]

The House version (H.R. 5682) and Senate version (S. 3709) of the bill differed due to amendments each had added before approving, but the versions were reconciled with a House vote of 330-59 on Dec 8th and a Senate voice-vote on Dec 9th^[6]^[7] before being passed on to President G.W. Bush for final approval. The White House had urged Congress to expedite the reconciliation process during the current lame duck session, and recommended removing certain amendments which would be deemed deal-killers by India.^[8] Nonetheless, while softened, several clauses restricting India's strategic nuclear program and conditions on having India align with U.S. views over Iran were incorporated with the civilian nuclear agreement.

In response to the language Congress used in the Act to define U.S. policy toward India, President Bush stated "Given the Constitution's commitment to the presidency of the authority to conduct the nation's foreign affairs, the executive branch shall construe such policy statements as advisory," going on to cite sections 103 and 104 (d) (2) of the bill. To assure Congress that its work would not be totally discarded, Bush continued by saying that the executive would give "the due weight that comity between the legislative and executive branches should require, to the extent consistent with U.S. foreign policy."^[9]

[edit] Background

Signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are granted access to civilian nuclear technology from each other as well as nuclear fuel via the Nuclear Suppliers Group in exchange for IAEA-verified compliance of the NPT tenets. India, Israel, and Pakistan, however, have not signed the NPT, arguing that the NPT creates a club of "nuclear haves" and a larger group of "nuclear have-nots" by restricting the legal possession of nuclear weapons to those states that tested them before 1967, but the treaty never explains on what ethical grounds such a distinction is valid.

The growing energy demands of the Indian and Chinese economies have raised questions on the impact of global energy availability. The Bush Administration has concluded that an Indian shift toward nuclear energy is in the best interest for America to secure its energy needs of coal, crude oil, and natural gas. Moreover, India's strong non-proliferation record and stable democracy further helped justify a nuclear pact with India while not providing Pakistan or others the same.

Since the end of the Cold War, The Pentagon, along with certain U.S. ambassadors such as Robert Blackwill, have requested increased strategic ties with India and a de-hyphenization of Pakistan with India.

While India is self-sufficient in thorium, possessing 24% of the world's known and economically available thorium,^[10] it possesses a meager 1% of the similarly calculated global uranium reserves.^[11] Indian support for cooperation with the U.S. centers around the issue of obtaining a steady supply of sufficient energy to grow the economy. Indian opposition to the pact centers around the concessions that would need to be made, as well as the likely de-prioritization of research into a thorium fuel-cycle if uranium becomes highly available given the well understood utilization of uranium in a nuclear fuel-cycle.

[edit] Criticism

The BJP, the current main opposition party in the Indian parliament, the CPI(M), a member of Manmohan Singh's coalition party, and several top nuclear scientists and institutions in India have asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to not accept the deal in its December 2006 form as it stipulates conditions that in some areas are more severe than the clauses in either the NPT or the CTBT.^[12]^[13]^[14]
Many who believe in the efficacy of the non-proliferation regime feel the 123 Agreement critically undermines the regime and sends mixed signals to other would-be nuclear states. Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., former director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) argues along these lines.^{[citation needed]}