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Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), founder of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, today supported passage of the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the legislation today by a vote of 298 to 117. Last night, the New Jersey congressman closed the debate for the Democrats with the following statement.
"Mr. Speaker, I beg to disagree with my colleague from Massachusetts for several reasons. First of all, this is not about Iran. India's entire history with regard to nuclear weapons has been defensive, completely defensive, not offensive in the way Iran speaks and its President speaks.
"In addition, India is very much like the United States. We know it's a democracy. We know there has always been very strict civilian control of its nuclear weapons. This is really not about nuclear weapons at all. It's about a civilian nuclear agreement between the United States and India.
"And we know very much that India is similar to the United States; it seeks energy independence, it does not want to be dependent upon Mid East oil and the Mid East countries in the same way that we are.
"By putting this agreement together, by passing this agreement tomorrow, basically we will be making India part of our partnership and saying that we will share civilian nuclear purposes. We will strengthen not only our own independence from Mid East oil, we will also strengthen India's.
"And the bottom line is that there is only a history of cooperation between the United States and India. India has a strong record--and I heard some of my colleagues say to the contrary, it simply is not true--India has a strong record of trying to create a situation of nuclear nonproliferation. It has been a leader, in fact, on that. And this agreement is simply going to strengthen that even more.
"I think that we can trust India. And the fact that we are going to work and have this agreement passed tomorrow--and I know that it will pass and it will pass on a bipartisan basis--will simply strengthen the alliance between our two countries, which is so important to both countries' future."
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