He has started circulating a 'Dear Colleague' letter, serving notice that he will introduce legislation on this issue that could address many concerns that lawmakers have with the India-US nuclear deal and calls on them to co-sponsor his bill when he introduces it.
In his letter, a copy of which was obtained by rediff India Abroad, Berman declared, 'I am unabashedly pro-India. I am a member of the India Caucus, consider myself a good friend of the Indian-American community, and strongly support efforts to deepen our strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy.'
But he wrote, 'I am also realistic. I accept the fact that India has nuclear weapons and will never sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.'
Berman mentioned his concerns about 'the specific deal we are being asked to support', and attaches recent Washington Post articles and editorials that question President Bush's rationale for entering into such an agreement with India a non-signatory of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and warns it will only help India increase its nuclear arsenal and trigger an arms race in South Asia.
The lawmaker alleged that the Bush administration conceded on almost every major point in negotiating this agreement with India. Even worse, he said, the administration essentially ignored the concerns of its nonproliferation experts and kept Congress in the dark until after the agreement was concluded.
Berman challenged the Bush administration's contention that the agreement, as currently conceived is 'a net plus for nonproliferation' and argues that 'on the contrary, one can make a strong argument that changing long-established and almost universally accepted rules of accommodate one country' without a compelling nonproliferation 'gain on the other side of the ledger' could undermine US efforts to prevent the spread of sensitive nuclear technology.
He noted that 'this view is shared by a vast majority of nonproliferation experts, both liberal and conservative, including important officials from the Reagan, George H W Bush and Clinton administrations.'
Berman reiterated that the agreement does not pin down India to halt its production of fissile material, and warns that the deal is permitted to go through, it would enable India to significantly expand its production of plutonium, because 'by allowing India to import uranium to fuel its civilian nuclear plants' India could devote all of its scarce domestic uranium supply to weapons production.
The Congressman said his bill, for starters, 'will be country-neutral,' in other words, it would apply not only to India, but to other countries that have never signed the NPT.
He stated that 'this approach is more defensible than an India-specific carve-out, which would likely encourage Russia and China to cut special deals with their friends, and this lead to the unraveling of nonproliferation norms.'
'Second,' he noted, 'my legislation will establish a set of objective conditions that a non-NPT country must meet to become eligible for civilian nuclear cooperation with the US. Admittedly, some of these conditions will be difficult to meet.'
Berman said although it is likely the administration and New Delhi would undoubtedly claim they are 'deal-breakers,' he predicted that given India's 'desperate need for fuel to power its civilian nuclear reactors, I suspect there is some flexibility in their negotiating position, a proposition that was never put to the test by the administration.'
Finally, he noted his bill would 'preserve the prerogative of Congress to examine the details of a nuclear cooperation agreement and approve it by majority vote before it goes into effect.'
Berman cautioning his colleagues, said, 'By contrast, under the administration's legislative proposal, Congress could only block even a deeply flawed nuclear cooperation agreement with India by passing a resolution of disapproval by a veto-proof two thirds majority.'
He asserted that the legislation he intends to introduce is not an attempt to 'kill' the deal, but 'rather, it is a good-faith effort to strike an appropriate balance between two compelling US national interests: enhancing our relationship with this growing power, and preserving meaningful, internationally-accepted rules on nuclear nonproliferation.'
© 2026