Editorial: Get rid of subsidy for industry

Monday, May 21, 2001 | 9:09 a.m.

The nuclear power industry keeps reminding us how safe it is to operate its power plants. It sure seems curious then that President Bush's energy plan is recommending the renewal of a law that limits the industry's liability from a nuclear accident. Without this government protection, nuclear power's supporters say, the development of more nuclear power plants in this nation could be severely curtailed. But if there is concern about the potential liability from an accident at a nuclear power plant, doesn't that say something troubling about how safe this energy source truly is?

As Sun reporters Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning noted in a Friday story, the Price-Anderson Act (first approved in 1957) protects nuclear power plant companies from having to pay astronomical accident insurance premiums. The law does so by capping liability policies at $200 million per reactor. It's not just environmentalists who don't want to see the Price-Anderson Act renewed. For instance, Taxpayers for Common Sense also will urge Congress not to renew the subsidy. "There are a lot of conservatives in Congress who believe the free market needs to work when it comes to energy policy," said the group's spokesman, Keith Ashdown.

It is amazing that the federal government doesn't mind providing what is, in effect, a subsidy for nuclear power, a technology that produces man's deadliest waste. And it is 77,000 tons of that nuclear waste, by the way, that the federal government wants to bury in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Yet at the same time the government is reticent to provide appropriate levels of tax credits and other incentives to allow for more use of truly clean energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal. Talk about hypocrisy.

Vice President Dick Cheney, a strong supporter of nuclear power who chaired the president's task force on energy policy, told Reuters news service that the Price-Anderson Act needs to be renewed. Otherwise, Cheney said, "nobody's going to invest in (new) nuclear power plants." But Congress should stop propping up nuclear power plants and let the industry provide for itself.