HOUSE LAWMAKERS REINTRODUCE GOLD STANDARD BILL FOR CIVIL NUKE DEALS

A bill that would require the Administration to gain Congressional approval for international nuclear cooperation agreements that do not meet certain nonproliferation standards was reintroduced late last week by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.). With civil nuclear cooperation agreements being negotiated with countries including South Korea, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, some lawmakers have pressed the Administration to adopt a “gold standard” limiting the rights to develop enrichment and reprocessing under those deals. Currently the agreements only need to sit before Congress for 90 legislative days, but a previous bill introduced in the House Foreign Affairs Committee would have required a vote for deals that did not meet the gold standard.

Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africe, said in a statement, “With the current Administration agreeing to an Iranian nuclear deal that is fraught with problems that undermine years of painstaking efforts to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear capacity, it’s more important than ever for Congress to have more oversight over nuclear cooperation agreements with other countries. This is why we are re-introducing legislation to amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to provide greater Congressional oversight of agreements for peaceful nuclear cooperation with foreign countries.”