Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- A group of the world's nuclear powers, set up 34 years ago to prevent countries from copying India's route to the atomic bomb, is meeting for a second day to determine whether they'll open trade with New Delhi's government as part of a U.S.-sponsored agreement.

The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group is convening in Vienna to consider exempting India from restrictions on its imports of nuclear material and technology. The group needs to vote unanimously to lift the ban, imposed after India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974.

``This is a serious subject and it is a room of serious people who have taken it in that manner,'' said U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control John Rood late yesterday in an e- mail.

The U.S.-Indian agreement would break 34 years of nuclear trade restrictions on India, allowing the world's second-most populous nation to satisfy rising energy demands through the purchase of atomic reactor technology.

Discussions have been complicated because India and the U.S. submitted a draft exemption to the Suppliers Group that is weaker than a December 2006 law passed by the U.S. Congress permitting the deal. India wants the option of testing more nuclear weapons. While the U.S. legislation would revoke the agreement if testing restarted, the proposal to the Suppliers Group wouldn't.

``It's a very sneaky way of the administration running rings around the Congress,'' London-based British American Security Information Council Co-Director Paul Ingram said today in a telephone interview. ``The U.S. would either have to keep their restrictions and lose contracts to the French and Russians or repeal the accord in favor of weaker legislation.''

Some U.S. Congressional members are urging the Nuclear Suppliers Group to reject the current proposal and add conditions to make it more compatible with U.S. law.

Framework Undermined

``The Bush administration delivered to the NSG a draft rule- change for India that undermines the entire international framework for limiting the spread of nuclear weapons,'' Representative Edward Markey, Democratic co-chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, said late yesterday in an e-mail. ``The NSG should reject this ill-considered, unwise and unproductive plan.''

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, a California Democrat, in an Aug. 5 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice similarly urged the administration not to support a Suppliers Group' waiver that didn't include a nuclear test ban.

Proponents of the accord argue that it will allow Indian utility companies, which are straining to supply power to industry, homes and farms, to buy equipment, fuel and reactors.

Westinghouse Electric Co., General Electric Co., Hitachi Ltd., Areva SA and Rosatom Corp. have been short-listed by India's Nuclear Power Corp., which may let them bid to supply reactors after an accord, Business Line reported.

India used technology from nuclear reactors imported from Canada and the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s to construct its nuclear arsenal, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association. The country possesses around 100 warheads.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 22, 2008 05:47 EDT