In an interview with rediff.com, hours before the debate and vote on the House floor, Crowley, the immediate past co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, and a member of the International Relations Committee, said, "I feel pretty good about it. The commitments have been made over and over again, and Mr Hyde and Mr Lantos (the authors of the enabling legislation HR 5682) have made clear that they won't support any killer amendments."
"I don't anticipate this time that any killer amendments will pass on the floor," he predicted. "So I feel pretty confident that we should have a very good vote today on the floor."
Crowley said according to an informal vote count his office had conducted, the bill was likely to be approved overwhelmingly. "We've been in contact with many officers and reassuring those who have questions about the issues and giving vote recommendations on these (killer) amendments -- things of that nature. So we feel pretty good about where we are at -- the communications I've had with members."
"So all things being said, we are in great shape," he added.
Crowley said he had met with President Bush a few days ago at the White House and he, " felt pretty good about where we are at " and was hopeful that the Senate would also overwhelmingly approve the Lugar/Biden bill when it's take up on the floor after the summer recess, and negotiate a compromise legislation with the House in conference, which he hoped to sign before this Congress adjourns for 2006.
Crowley, also fired off a Dear Colleague letter, in addition to the one sent by Hyde and Lugar, asking members to oppose the killer amendments on tap.
"As we begin the debate on HR 5682 -- the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006 -- it is important to note that several well intentioned amendments will have detrimental effects on our bilateral relationship if passed," he warned.
Crowley argued, "Any amendments requiring a cut off of fissile material will kill the agreement and bring our relationship with India back to the days before President Clinton's historic visit."
He also attached to his letter, a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations, which he said, "Details the importance of the relationship with India and suggests many of the fixes within HR 5682."
"I urge you to review this report and vote against amendments that will spoil our emerging relationship with the world's largest democracy," he wrote.
The CFR report, authored by Michael A Levi and Charles D Ferguson, warned that if Congress were to block cooperation, "after the Bush Administration has made strong and public commitments to India, it would substantially damage the bilateral relationship."
It said, "Rejecting the nuclear deal now -- or effectively scuttling it by conditioning cooperation on explicit limits to Indian nuclear material production -- would leave the United States in a substantially worse position than had the deal not been made in the first place, reinforcing unfortunately Indian perceptions of the United States as an unreliable partner."
Levi and Ferguson argued in their report that "Congress should not allow the effect of its actions on US-India relations to trump all its traditional nonproliferation concerns."
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