Tuesday, June 27 2006 10:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: With the Bush administration pulling all stops, a lower house panel of the US Congress is expected to Tuesday clear a bipartisan bill supporting the US-India nuclear deal giving New Delhi access to nuclear energy and know how after 30 years.

The Senate Foreign Relations committee is expected to follow suit on Wednesday, a day after the House International Committee 'marks up' or reviews the text of its bill as the deal has won critical support from the heads of both panels.

Neither bill has been made public, but congressional sources said both lay down India-specific criteria for giving President George Bush power to exempt India from the Atomic Energy Act restrictions to permit exports of nuclear materials, equipment and technology to it.

Making a reference to India's democratic credentials and non-proliferation track record, these criteria would practically rule out Pakistan getting a similar nuclear agreement in tune with Bush's statement in Islamabad last March that Pakistan and India were 'two different countries with different needs and different histories'.

Drafted by the Republican chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois and Tom Lantos of California, the leading Democrat, the bill coming up for vote before the House panel on Tuesday reflects the bipartisan consensus on the bill.

Similarly in the Senate committee, Republican chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana and Democrat Joseph Biden of Delaware have worked on their version. If the two versions differ substantially in the operational part, they would have to be reconciled for the deal to get Congressional approval.

The original bill introduced in the house on March 16, 2006 by Hyde and Lantos required the president to make seven determinations before going ahead with the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement.

These included India having a credible plan to separate its civil and military facilities, making satisfactory progress toward implementing an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency for its civilian nuclear programme and working with the United States for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.

The president will have to report to the foreign relations committees of the two houses the basis of his decision and it would become ineffective if he finds that India has detonated a nuclear explosive device after the Act is enacted.

The India-US nuclear deal is coming up for vote before the two house panels after weeks of hectic activity with the White House declaring it the President's 'top priority' and Bush himself meeting several influential Congressmen to win their support.

Vice President Dick Cheney chose the forum of US-India Business Council last week to urge the leadership of the India Caucus in the two houses to usher through the 'critical' agreement, while the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is reported to have personally contacted many lawmakers.

Bush administration's key negotiator on the deal, Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who has spent much time on Capitol Hill, seat of the US Congress, to counter opposition to the deal made it clear that the Bush administration is against any deal-breaker amendments that would force it to go back to the negotiating table.