Friday, June 30 2006 10:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: It took less than two hours for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday (June 29, 2006) to endorse a bill by an overwhelming 16 to 2 vote to implement the historic Indo-US nuclear deal, unlike its House counterpart which debated it for four hours, as the panel had far fewer amendments to address.

Even before the hearing began, senior staffers said the debate and vote in the 18-member Senate Committee was going to be relatively quicker than the 50-member House committee, which had passed its version of the draft bill on the deal two days ago.

One reason for the quick success was that the Senate Committee legislation, brought in by its Chair and the Ranking Member Richard Lugar and Joseph Biden, had factored in many or most of the sentiments expressed by Panel members.

The bill, which would be now go for voting in full floor of Senate, was also highly detailed.

But still, three amendments were offered.

Senator Lincoln Chaffe of Rhode Island offered his amendment in the policy section that in this civilian nuclear energy cooperation, there would be no support to India's nuclear weapons programme, directly or indirectly. With very little resistance, the Panel approved the amendment on a voice vote.

The second amendment was offered by Senator Barak Obama of Illinois who proposed that if India's actions triggered a cut off of supplies from the US, Washington should not encourage other nations to undercut the process. This too easily passed on a voice vote.