No exemption for India on nuclear treaty
PRESIDENT BUSH'S zeal for promoting global commercial deals at the expense of national security -- apparent in the Dubai ports fiasco -- has now led him to propose a huge loophole in international law for India that threatens the world. In the deal, the United States would join India to blow a hole in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, shaking the foundation of international cooperation to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The same president who warned that the United States must not send ''mixed signals to the world" is fast becoming confusion's favorite semaphore.
India is the world's largest democracy, but it is also a nuclear outlier. It has steadfastly refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, refused to accept full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards over all of its nuclear facilities, diverted peaceful technology into several nuclear weapons, and continued to build a nuclear arsenal. Under existing US law or under international law, India has disqualified itself from full civil nuclear cooperation.
Bush has now decided to try to override US law and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to accommodate India's defiance. But he is unleashing a dangerous new dynamic in an unstable world. Granting India a special exemption from the nonproliferation rules sets the table for a nuclear weapons banquet that could include a large group of unwanted guests. Russia may seek special exemptions from the nuclear rules to share nuclear materials with Iran. China will have a free pass to grant special exemptions for Pakistan or North Korea.
Indeed, Pakistan has already said that it wants the same special exemptions that India gets. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry has stated that, ''We do expect that any concessions and exception granted to India in the context of NSG [Nuclear Suppliers Group] or any other multilateral arrangement will be applicable to Pakistan also."
Moreover, every one of the 188 nations that signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty will ask, ''If people who don't sign are entitled to the same benefits as those who do, why bother playing by the rules?" Good question.
Bush justifies granting India this special exemption by saying that India is a special case -- it is a responsible nation that has not spread nuclear weapons technologies to others. India may look good next to Pakistan's A.Q. Khan, the weapons scientist who secretly assisted the Libyan and Iranian nuclear programs. But in 1974, India used US technology to detonate a nuclear explosive -- it acquired the technology by pledging that it was for peaceful purposes only. India broke that pledge claiming it had detonated a ''peaceful nuclear explosion."
India does need energy to fuel its growing economy, but the United States can help to counter India's looming coal-fired contribution to climate change without undermining the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. India has the third largest coal reserves in the world, and coal plants produce 67 percent of India's electricity. India burns dirty coal at a high rate that will only increase in the future, leading to emissions that will overwhelm all the efforts of the Kyoto signatories to bring greenhouse gas emissions under control.
A realistic, safe, and practical energy plan for India would be a US-India energy partnership to maximize energy efficiency, aggressively pursue renewable energy sources, and support cleaner coal plants.
Energy efficiency and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower should be used to make unnecessary as many coal plants as possible. When a coal plant is built, we can help build them with the lowest possible emissions of child-killing particulates, with gasification to reduce mercury and sulfur dioxide emissions that cause acid rain and smog, and with technology to sequester carbon dioxide and prevent further global warming.
The solution for a lasting alliance with India will not be achieved by blowing a hole in the nonproliferation treaty. The United States should return to principles that can guide its bilateral relations with the world's largest democracy without unleashing a nuclear Pandora's Box.
Representative Edward Markey, a Democrat of Malden, is cochairman of the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation. 
