With the US House of Representatives set to consider the Indo-US nuclear deal, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid today indicated that the legislation on the subject in his Chamber will be taken up and passed only next week.
“It appears quite evident that we are going to be in session next week. There are a lot of things that haven’t been done and I will mention just a couple of them,” Senator Reid said.
In his opening remarks at the Senate this morning, he said, “We have a DOD (Department of Defence) authorisation which is very important, rail safety, Amtrak, the finalisation of the financial crisis legislation.”
“We have the Indian nuclear agreement. I had a number of conversations with Secretary (of State Condoleezza Rice) and President (George W) Bush on this issue,” the top Democrat in the Senate said.
“We have a number of other bills... That we have to find cloture, before we leave here,” the Senate Majority leader said.
Reid also indicated that the only recorded vote that is going to come today is on the Continuing Resolution, which has already cleared the House of Representatives.
The US-India civilian nuclear agreement upon clearing the House after debate and carried with a two-thirds majority will go to the Senate.
In fact one reason why the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, was prevailed upon to stick to the Senate version is to avoid further time by way of having to reconcile two versions through a conference committee session.
In spite of what Senator Reid said in his opening remarks, efforts are said to be on to see if the US-India civilian nuclear agreement could be “hotlined” in the Senate — a procedure that is done at the discretion of the Majority leader in consultation with the Minority leader requesting members of the Senate to agree to allow a bill or resolution to be approved without debate or amendment.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to take up the US-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement (the Berman Bill, H.R.7081) later today.
