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The Republican and Democratic leadership in the US Senate have decided to accord the enabling legislation (S. 3709) to facilitate the US-India civilian nuclear agreement a high priority during the lame-duck session and pushed it to the front-burner. Hence, there is a strong possibility that the bill will be debated and voted on the floor come Wednesday or Thursday.
Senior Congressional sources told rediff.com that key aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid (who will take over as Majority Leader in January following the Democrats' victory in the November 7 election), along with the staffs of Senators Richard Lugar and Joe Biden, chairman and ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had met on November 9 for over two hours and reached a consensus regarding the priority of the US-India legislation "and that the Senate should make it happen in the lame-duck session."
"It is now wholly a bi-partisan effort and there is a 90 per cent chance that it will be up on the floor on Wednesday and spill over to Thursday, unless something changes dramatically today (November 13) or tomorrow," one aide said.
According to the aide, both the Republican and Democratic leadership, in consultation with Lugar and Biden -- the authors of S. 3709 -- had agreed "on a limited number of amendments -- six to eight maximum -- to be debated all of Wednesday, and maximum for a day and half."
"Immediately after that (the vote), the plan is to go to conference (with the House leadership) so that they can reconcile the two bills and work it out so that as soon as they return after the Thanksgiving recess, they can agree on one bill and send it to the president's desk for signature," the aide added.
The Senate, which convened on Monday (November 13) for the lame-duck session, will adjourn on November 17 for the Thanksgiving holiday recess and then reconvene again on December 4 for a maximum of two weeks before calling it quits.
The administration and the pro-India lobby comprising US business and industry and the Indian-American community have been working overtime to push lawmakers to take it up this week and at least get it voted on before the president leaves for Vietnam for the APEC summit on November 18, along with a positive vote on the Permanent Normal Trade Relations legislation with Vietnam.
Another key aide, recalling the sniping that went on between the Republican and Democratic leadership before they adjourned last month to prepare for the November 7 election, where each side blamed the other for not bringing the legislation up for debate and a vote, said, "Now, nobody is blaming one another, it's completely bipartisan and they are all on the same wave length and as you know the president has already mentioned it twice as a high priority."
On November 9, for the second time in two days, President Bush stressed the importance of getting the enabling legislation completed during the lame-duck session.
"On the foreign policy front, we need to complete the work on legislation that will allow us to cooperate with India on civilian nuclear technology and pass trade legislation that will enable us to recognise Vietnam as a member of the World Trade Organisation," he said.
On November 8, at a press conference at the White House after the Democrats' resounding victory where they regained both the House and Senate after 12 years, Bush had said, "I'm trying to get the Indian deal done, the Vietnam deal done and the budgets done," when he was asked if he would endorse legislation to extend voting rights in the District of Columbia.
"Some of these issues need to be addressed before the current Congress finished its legislative session," he said. "That means the next few weeks are going to be busy ones."
Senior administration officials told rediff.com last week that Bush during a breakfast meeting with Frist and other members of the Republican leadership on November 9 and a separate meeting with Reid and the Democratic leadership in the Senate, had impressed upon them that he would like to see the nuclear bill and the Vietnam trade bill brought up on the Senate floor and voted on during the lame-duck session so that he can sign them before the year is out.
On Monday, November 13, in their opening remarks to the lame-duck session of the Senate, both Frist and Reid pledged to bring up the India nuclear bill and the Vietnam trade bill and listed them as priorities along with other domestic appropriation bills.
Frist said, "This week, we will also work towards agreement on the passage of the Vietnam Normal Trade Relations legislation and the US-India nuclear agreement as well as other appropriation measures."
Reid, for his part, said, "We have our mind on concluding the appropriation bills and the very important nuclear agreement with the largest democracy in the world, India. We also want to do it for a number of reasons, not the least of which the president is leaving in a few days to Vietnam. We would like to see that completed with the minimum amount of debate and amendments."
Last month, in an exclusive interview with rediff.com, immediately after the Senate adjourned for the November 7 elections, Reid had accused Frist of simply bluffing that he was all for the India nuclear bill to be voted on positively on the Senate floor before the recess for the elections, but had continued to stall and refused to bring it up on the floor unless the Democrats agreed to certain pre-conditions of limited debate to six hours and a minimum number of amendments.
In the interview, Reid pledged that he is all for the nuclear bill being the first thing the Senate takes up when it returns for its lame-duck session.
Congressional sources and activists who comprise the pro-India lobby in the business and industry groups and the Indian-American community told rediff.com that "on the floor, we are assured of 80 per cent of the vote. We don't have to educate anyone anymore about the importance of this deal."
One community activist said, "I asked Reid's staff that I need to get my plane ticket to come to Washington to sit in the Senate floor and watch the debate and whether I should come on Tuesday or Wednesday, and they told me to come on Wednesday."
"I also got a phone call from Biden's people saying they had cancelled two of his events in New York this week because the India civilian nuclear legislation can come up on Wednesday or Thursday. So I've got it from different sources that it's on Wednesday and Thursday and that's why I am hoping that it's a 90 per cent done deal," he said.
This community activist, who is one of the leading Indian-American fund-raisers for Biden -- who will become the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in January -- added, "For Senator Biden, this is his number one priority."
Congressional sources said that they were also trying to work out the pre-conference committee issues in consultation with the administration with regard to strategy to reconcile both bills, "so it looks very, very positive."
"As you know," one source reminded, "the House version is different than the Senate version, which the administration and India have a problem with where certain provisions and language are concerned, and the Senators are well aware of this and these are the things that have to be worked out in conference."
Meanwhile, Ron Somers, president of the US-India Business Council, who is spearheading the US business and industry's lobbying efforts on behalf of the US-India nuclear deal, spoke of an "advocacy event," on November 15 that the USIBC and the Coalition for Partnership with India was hosting, featuring Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the chief US negotiator of the deal, along with former secretary of defense in the Clinton Administration William Cohen and former US ambassadors to India Frank Wisner and Tom Pickering -- all indefatigable advocates of the deal.
"And we are having all of the Indian-American community activists," he told rediff.com, "and then we are all going to go up on Capitol Hill for the final lobbying push for the lame-duck session."
Somers said, "We are extremely optimistic and the advocacy event and the visit to Capitol Hill is to project our enthusiasm and our optimism and moving this thing in the right direction going forward."
"The USIBC and CPI are seen now as the point of the spear in bringing this lobbying forward and I also want to say that the White House has been extremely helpful and cooperative," he said. "I am very heartened by calls from the White House (National Security Council), from the Vice President's Office and I believe that we actually have major traction underway now," he added.
Earlier, the CPI in a memo to Indian-American community leaders updating them on the bills, said, "A solid majority of Democrats and Republicans alike support the strategic, non-proliferation, and environmental benefits embodied by US-India civilian nuclear cooperation."
"With none of the Senate opponents of the bill indicating an intention to block it, the challenge now becomes balancing the need for dissenters to voice their concerns with the scarcity of floor time during the lame-duck session," the CPI memo said.
It said, "We are hopeful that leaders from both parties will elevate S. 3709 above mere partisanship. On the Democratic side, we have encouraged Senator Reid, Senator Biden and their staffs to demonstrate their leadership by winnowing down the amendments to a manageable number."
"On the Republican side," the CPI said, "We have urged Senator Frist and his staff to prepare to devote adequate floor time for this historic initiative. We believe both parties are now working together to determine how best to pass the legislation during the narrow opportunity presented by the lame-duck session."
Ted Jones, advocacy director of the CPI, told rediff.com that, "I have seen impressive bipartisan cooperation in the Indian-American community in my year working on behalf of this initiative. I have seen fundraising across the aisle for politicians who are championing the initiative; bipartisan financing for full-page newspaper ads; bipartisan sponsorship of Congressional receptions; and bipartisan attendance at Coalition for Partnership with India events."
The Indian American Security Leadership Council, a bipartisan organisation created to encourage closer ties between America and India, and to promote the idea that America's future security would be greatly enhanced by working closely with India, said that on November 15, it would be running a full-page advertisement in the influential Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, urging the Senate to pass the US-India nuclear agreement legislation without any 'killer amendments.'
Ramesh Kapur, the founder and president of IASLC, said, "We have been overwhelmed by the support we received from veterans organisations, Indo-American leaders and other Americans who are concerned about US national security and have expressed to their Senators the need to have this bill passed before the 109th Congress adjourns."
"Now is the time for the US Senate to take the steps necessary to pass this crucial legislation. We believe that India, the world's largest democracy with over half a century of electoral stability, is a growing military and economic force in the region and can help safeguard American security in a way that no other country in the region can," Kapur added.
Swadesh Chatterjee, founder and coordinator of the US-India Friendship Council, formed six months ago with the specific mandate of pushing the US-India nuclear deal through in Congress, which has been hosting a slew of fund-raisers for the likes of Biden and other influential lawmakers and hosting Congressional receptions, told rediff.com that even if the Senate bill "is passed this week, we are not planning to do any big celebratory event now."
"The only time we will do a big celebratory event is after the conference committee meeting and after they agree on one bill -- which India and the administration can live with -- and sends it up to the president for his signature. Then we will have a big celebratory event in Washington," Chatterjee said.