Full Text of U.S.-Russia "123" Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement

Today, President Bush submitted for Congressional review an agreement to broadly permit U.S.-Russia civil nuclear cooperation. The full text of this accord, known as a "123 agreement" after the section of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 that requires it, is available here.

Under U.S. law, the US-Russia 123 agreement will automatically enter into force after 90 days of continuous session, if Congress does not pass a law either to amend or block the agreement. Two bills -- H.R. 1400 (which has 325 co-sponsors and passed the House in a 397-to-16 vote last September) and S. 970 (which 71 out of 100 Senators have co-sponsored, but the consideration of which is being held up by at least one Senator) -- would block this agreement, but it remains unclear whether these bills will become law.

The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), where I work as a research fellow, offers some great resources for those who interested in understanding better the context in which this agreement will be reviewed. First, NPEC recently released The Next Phase of U.S.-Russian Civil Nuclear Relations: Opportunities, Risks and Choices, a backgrounder by me and NPEC executive director Henry Sokolski on the seismic changes-in-the-making to this bilateral nuclear relationship.

Second, NPEC provides an excellent selection of primary source documents relevant to this agreement:

• Full text of the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (May 6, 2008)
• Fact Sheet on U.S.-Russia Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation by U.S. Department of State (May 6, 2008)
• Statement by President Bush (May 6, 2008)
• Letter from Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) to President Bush (May 1, 2008)
• Letter from House Energy and Commerce Committee chair John Dingell (D-MI) and House Energy Subcommittee chair Bart Stupak (D-MI) to President Bush (May 7, 2008)
• Letter from Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and 30 other Senators to President Bush (May 7, 2008)

More to follow.

Posted by Robert at May 13, 2008 7:12 PM