House Foreign Affairs Committee Passes Bill on U.S.-Russia Nuclear Cooperation

On July 23, 2008, Representatives Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) introduced H.R. 6574, a bill to implement an agreement for nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. The legislation was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Committee on Science and Technology. On July 24, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a session to markup the legislation. It was passed by Voice Vote.

Sections 201 and 202 of H.R. 6574 include two certification requirements related to Iran. According to the bill, "No license may be issued for the export of nuclear material, equipment, or technology to the Russian Federation pursuant to the Agreement for any fiscal year beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act unless the President certifies to the appropriate congressional committees for such fiscal year that:
1) Russia "has taken, and is continuing to take, effective actions to prohibit, terminate, and prevent the transfer of goods, services, or technology as defined in this Act to the Government of Iran" for the preceding 12 months; and
2) Russia "is fully and completely supporting United States efforts to achieve effective international and United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran in response to Iran's nuclear program."

Below is the full text of Sections 201 and 202.

SEC. 201. CERTIFICATION OF ACTIONS BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ON NONPROLIFERATION MATTERS.

(a) Certification- No license may be issued for the export of nuclear material, equipment, or technology to the Russian Federation pursuant to the Agreement for any fiscal year beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act unless the President certifies to the appropriate congressional committees for such fiscal year that the requirements of subsection (b) have been met.

(b) Requirements- The requirements referred to in subsection are the following:

(1) The Government of the Russian Federation has taken, and is continuing to take, effective actions to prohibit, terminate, and prevent the transfer of goods, services, or technology as defined in this Act to the Government of Iran.

(2) For the preceding 12-month period--

(A) there has been no cooperation with respect to any activity described in paragraph (1) between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of Iran or any national of Iran based on all credible information available to the United States at the time of the certification; and

(B)(i) there has been no cooperation with respect to any activity described in paragraph (1) between any national of the Russian Federation and the Government of Iran or any national of Iran based on all credible information available to the United States at the time of the certification; or

(ii) the Government of the Russian Federation has--

(I) terminated any significant cooperation between any such Russian national and the Government of Iran or any such Iranian national;

(II) instituted effective measures to prevent a reoccurrence of any such cooperation; or

(III) prosecuted any such Russian national.

(c) Limitation- A certification of the conditions described in clause (ii) of subsection (b)(2)(B) may not be used to satisfy the requirements of such subsection for three or more consecutive fiscal years.

(d) Sunset- The provisions of this section shall be effective for the 5-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.

SEC. 202. CERTIFICATION OF COOPERATION BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ON IRAN SANCTIONS.

(a) Certification- No license may be issued for the export of nuclear material, equipment or technology to the Russian Federation pursuant to the Agreement for any fiscal year beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act unless the President certifies to the appropriate congressional committees for such fiscal year that the requirements of subsection (b) have been met.

(b) Requirements- The requirements referred to in subsection (a) are that the Government of the Russian Federation is fully and completely supporting United States efforts to achieve effective international and United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran in response to Iran's nuclear program.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on the Russia 123 Agreement

On Thursday, June 12 at 9:30 am, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will hold a hearing on “Russia, Iran, and Nuclear Weapons: Implications of the Proposed U.S.-Russia Agreement” in Rayburn 2172. Witnesses announced so far include Honorable John C. Rood, Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department; Robert J. Einhorn, Senior Adviser in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies; and Henry D. Sokolski, Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

Even More on the 123 Agreement for Nuclear Cooperation with Russia

Ivan Oelrich has an excellent posting on the Federation of American Scientists blog today regarding the proposed 123 Agreement for nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. I wholeheartedly agree with Ivan’s analysis on Iran, “that the Russians have, overall, been responsible in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program and have come up with some innovative ideas.” I also agree that there are much better arguments than Iran for opposing the agreement, as I have said in previous postings here and here.

In his analysis, Oelrich points out that the 123 agreement with Russia may be part of an effort to bolster the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In addition to Russia, the U.S. is pushing agreements for nuclear cooperation with all of the Middle East countries that have expressed interest in developing a nuclear program since the 2006 appeal from Secretary General of the Arab League and former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Musa to the Arab world, “to quickly and powerfully enter the world of using nuclear power.” In the memoranda of understanding with Middle Eastern countries signed thus far, the U.S. is tying GNEP to nuclear cooperation with these countries. This, I think, bolsters Oelrich’s argument for fighting GNEP directly, rather than individual agreements for cooperation.

In an article for the Middle East Report on this subject to be published this summer, I argue, among other things, that the U.S. is selling GNEP as part of the nuclear cooperation packages in part because it needs a lucrative market to sell a new generation of reactors and fuel. Convincing countries in the Middle East to forego domestic reprocessing and enrichment also bolsters U.S. plans to reprocess fuel from domestic and foreign reactors for use in a new generation of reactors. However, this is a highly unstable and hypocritical policy that will only widen the gap between the nuclear haves and have-nots. Addressing the deep-seeded inequalities of the nonproliferation and disarmament regime is far more likely than nuclear cooperation agreements to mitigate proliferation concerns in the Middle East and around the world.

More on the 123 Russian Nuclear Agreement

Members of Congress are getting energized to oppose the 123 Agreement for nuclear cooperation with Russia that President George W. Bush submitted yesterday. Unfortunately, their reasons for the opposing the 123 agreement are misplaced.

Most members are focusing on Russia’s cooperation with Iran as the central reason why they should not allow the agreement to go through. In the House of Representatives, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has prepared and is circulating a resolution of disapproval that I have been told focuses on Russia’s cooperation with Iran. In the Senate, there is a renewed push for S. 970, the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, with the reasoning that Section 6 of the bill would make it possible to block such agreements with Russia. As Bill Reinsch, head of the National Foreign Trade Council, noted in an April Senate Finance Committee hearing, S.970’s passage would come at a hefty price and “have serious unintended consequences which will be manifested rather quickly, and which would make our efforts to change Iran's behavior significantly more difficult.” S. 970 has 70 co-sponsors and is the house version of H.R. 1400, which passed 397-16 on September 25, 2007.

As a senior Senate committee staffer said today, it is not helpful to focus on Russia’s cooperation with Iran as a reason to disapprove of the agreement. Instead, Congress should be focusing its efforts on the real concerns that the agreement will enable a costly, proliferation-prone program - the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

U.S.-Russian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement Submitted to Congress

Today, the Bush administration formally submitted to Congress an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation (also known as a 123 Agreement) between Russia and the United States that was signed last week. The agreement will become effective unless both chambers of Congress pass a joint resolution of disapproval within 90 days to block it.

Iran has become a central point in the debate over the U.S.-Russia nuclear agreement as expressed in letters from members of Congress from both the Senate and House. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the following in response to being notified of the agreement:

“I am very concerned about the implications of an extensive new agreement for nuclear cooperation with Russia at a time when Russia has not been fully supportive of tough and far-reaching multilateral sanctions to convince Iran to cease its dangerous uranium enrichment activities. The Bush Administration has not received enough support from Russia in dealing with Iran to justify moving forward with this agreement at this time. Administration officials briefed our committee last week, but they were unable to offer convincing answers to our questions; we will give them a further opportunity in hearings on this subject next month.”

Just before stepping down last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a presidential decree singing into law economic sanctions agreed to by the United Nations Security Council in March (Resolution 1803). This may have been a result of pressure from the U.S. to implement the sanctions in exchange for the 123 Agreement, but it also may have simply been for internal political reasons. Russia was after all one of the original authors of Resolution 1803.

While the U.S.-Russia 123 agreement is questionable because it will pave the way for the controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Congressional concerns over Russia’s cooperation with Iran on the Bushehr reactor are misplaced. Last week, Senators Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) spearheaded a letter to President Bush expressing concerns over Russia's exports of nuclear fuel to Iran for the Bushehr nuclear power plant. In the letter, the Senators argue that the U.S.-Russian 123 agreement “would pave the way for the increased commercialization of Russia's nuclear energy sector and could be construed as U.S. approval of its proliferation activities in Iran.”

But, the Bush administration points to the Bushehr program to support arguments that Iran does not need a uranium enrichment program. The Bush administration changed its position last year on Bushehr in order to get Russian support for United Nations sanctions on Iran. The reversal in the U.S. position on the Bushehr reactor also followed Iran’s agreement to return spent nuclear fuel from the reactor back to Russia to ensure it doesn't extract plutonium to make nuclear weapons.

In a separate letter raising questions about the 123 Agreement sent to President Bush on May7, Representatives John Dingell (D-MI) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) said that Congress needs a “detailed assessment of Russian assistance to all aspects Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.” More importantly, the Dingell-Stupak letter raises very legitimate concerns regarding how the 123 Agreement will encourage greater cooperation on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), particularly given the fact that the Department of Energy has yet to develop a proliferation assessment of the program.

Representatives Dingell and Stupak cite their Committee on Energy and Commerce’s jurisdiction over civilian nuclear energy and its ongoing investigation of GNEP, a program to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from both domestic and foreign reactors for use in a new generation of reactors. The Committee’s investigation has so far revealed that there is not consensus on whether the U.S. should abandon its 30-year nonproliferation policy that prohibits the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Representatives Dingell and Stupak note that GNEP program would have the same results as commercial reprocessing in other countries including the U.K., France, Japan and Russia where there is an accumulation of 150 metric tons of separated plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons, representing a significant proliferation risk. And as an April 24, 2008 letter from nine U.S. senators urging funding cuts to GNEP demonstrates, there are other wide-ranging concerns about the program ranging from cost, to nuclear proliferation risks, to environmental contamination dangers.

The U.S.-Russia nuclear cooperation agreement certainly raises many questions about nonproliferation policy and double-standards and the agreement should be subject to scrutiny. U.S. plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel would be particularly hypocritical when it is seeking to prevent the spread of reprocessing technology and expertise to other countries. Hopefully the agreement will also raise the debate about whether it is good policy for the U.S. to base strengthening its relationships with other countries on nuclear cooperation agreements and the implications it has for the nonproliferation and disarmament regime.