Yet Another subsidy to dangerous nuclear power

First enacted in 1957, the Price-Anderson act, which was supposed to last only 10 years, has limited the commercial nuclear power industry's liability should they have a catastrophic accident. Congress is now feverishly working to reauthorize the Act. Through the Price-Anderson act, nuclear utilities can afford insurance that they could never obtain in real free market circumstances.

Look for the "Nuclear Hazard Exclusion Clause" in your insurance policy. You can’t get protection from a nuclear accident, but the nuclear industry can. You foot the bill should the Price-Anderson cap be exceeded—and it will. Even a $12 billion cap is a pittance compared to the thousands of deaths and about $600 Billion in damages projected in the US. The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident has cost an estimated $350 billion.

Price-Anderson expires in August 2002. If Price-Anderson were not reauthorized, existing reactors would still be covered by its current provisions. So what’s the false sense of urgency? As Vice-President Dick Cheney recently admitted, without extension of Price-Anderson to new reactors, "Nobody's going to invest in nuclear power."

The industry wants us to ensure a new generation of reactors that have less containment then Chernobyl. This simple, frightening fact makes "new" reactors extremely vulnerable to terrorist attack, and shows the duplicity of the nuclear industry. Industry is calling these reactors (without any containment) "inherently safe" but they also claim these reactors are not safe enough to insure without a law limiting utility liability. Which is it?

With the Act, the public is denied financial protection from the enormous health costs and economic losses from a catastrophic accident. If the nuclear industry is the safe, market viable and mature industry it claims to be, it can be held accountable for the real cost of doing business. If it can’t survive on its own by now, it should be abandoned.