On March 23, 2024, out of the public view and without a single hearing, both chambers of Congress passed legislation and the White House signed into law, the renewal of the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) that extends and expands the nuclear industry’s limited liability protection to the next severe accident by forty years until December 31, 2065. The PAA financially shields the nuclear industry that otherwise would never have built its first reactor.
While the [estimated] cost of nuclear accidents at Chornobyl and Fukushima have exceeded hundreds of billions of dollars, the current PAA limits the
U.S. industry’s collective liability to just over $16 billion per accident — leaving federal taxpayers liable for the remaining compensation costs. Let’s remember, the U.S. government has yet to provide compensation to downwind U.S. citizens, still sickened and dying of cancer caused by the first atomic bomb “test” (Trinity) on July 16, 1945.
The PAA renewal is the most dramatic demonstration that the nuclear industry and its deluded champions have “no confidence” in their own cynical promotional rhetoric.
— Excerpted from Beyond Nuclear, March 27, 2024
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