Senate debates nuke insurance plan

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, March 7, 2002 | 10:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate today debated whether to renew a 45-year-old government insurance plan that makes taxpayers liable for a catastrophic nuclear accident if the cost spirals higher than $9.5 billion.

Senators were expected to vote today as part of a broader debate on an energy bill.

At issue is the so-called Price-Anderson Act, designed to pool the resources of the nation's 105 nuclear reactors, three of which are inoperative.

According to the act, the owner of a nuclear reactor would pay up to $200 million in the event of an accident, such as the one in 1979 at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island.

Owners of the nation's other reactors would pitch in roughly $88 million more per reactor for a total of about $9.5 billion. If cleanup cost climb higher than that, then Congress -- and taxpayers -- would be responsible for the rest of the tab.

Anti-nuclear activists have said a catastrophic accident could cost as much as $300 billion. They say the act amounts to a government subsidy.

Nevada lawmakers oppose Price-Anderson, because it supports an industry bent on shipping its waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles from Las Vegas. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., introduced alternative legislation that would require new plant owners to find private insurance.

"Why should they have the benefits of government handouts, really, when other electrical utilities do not?" Reid asked.

But nuclear supporters say taxpayers are not at risk.

Since Price-Anderson first passed in 1957 -- lawmakers have renewed it three times -- nuclear plant operators have paid out only about $180 million for accidents, and taxpayers have not had to spend a dime, the act's advocates say.

If Congress does not renew the act, which expires in August, Price-Anderson coverage would remain intact for existing nuclear plants. But new plants would not be covered.

Industry advocates say renewing Price-Anderson is key to the future of U.S. nuclear power.

During the debate today, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the Senate's leading supporter of the Yucca Mountain project, also had strong words of support for the federal plan to ship the nation's high-level nuclear waste to Nevada.

"You are not going to expand nuclear power until you have a resolve on what you are going to do with the waste," Murkowski said.