Congress Weighs Altering Nuclear Trade Deal Rules

Democratic and Republican lawmakers are considering potential legal reforms aimed at discouraging nuclear proliferation by nations that join atomic trade agreements with the United States, Arms Control Today reported (see GSN, Sept. 22).
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) called at a hearing last month for Washington to seek the same nonproliferation commitments from all new "123" deal signatories that it received from the United Arab Emirates. The Middle Eastern state agreed in a deal finalized last year to rule out domestic production of nuclear fuel in order to import U.S. atomic energy technologies, fuel and related materials (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2009).
The United States “should also consider making this an additional statutory requirement in the Atomic Energy Act,” Berman said.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the panel's top Republican, said she was preparing legislation to mandate that "our potential partners permanently [forgo] the manufacture of nuclear fuel" -- a process that could be used to produce weapon-grade material.
"The most urgent change" to federal nonproliferation statutes would be to require that lawmakers formally endorse atomic trade pacts, rather than simply fail to reject them within a specific time period, Ros-Lehtinen added.
The United States should also enact legislation blacklisting non-U.S. firms that act against the nation's nonproliferation efforts, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center head Henry Sokolski said.
"Different people (in Congress) are working on different things," said one congressional insider with knowledge of issue. The legislative process is in the "nascent stages" and no bill is likely to be introduced in 2010, the source said.
The source was unaware of "any real objections" from lawmakers to such proposals, but he said no one "is under any illusions" that they would not receive resistance. The Obama administration would probably oppose legislation that would curb its diplomatic options in formulating such pacts, according to Arms Control Today.
The administration was reassessing its policies on civilian nuclear trade pacts, according to two sources familiar with the issue (Daniel Horner, Arms Control Today, October 2010).