A federal nuclear liability shield would be extended for 40 years and quadruple the value of federal indemnity for nuclear incidents outside the U.S. if a 2024 appropriations bill passed by the House Friday becomes law.
The language in the appropriations package that funds the Department of Defense and several other agencies would extend the Price-Anderson protections to Dec. 31, 2065 and require the federal government to indemnify companies for $2 billion worth damages arising from nuclear incidents abroad, up from $500 million under the current law.
The maximum insurance requirements for nuclear companies and contractors would remain at $500 million. The federal government covers damages from nuclear incidents above that amount.
The House passed the bill 286 to 134 early Friday afternoon. The Senate had not scheduled votes on the appropriations package as of Thursday afternoon, but funding for the federal agencies for which the package would make new appropriations runs out after Friday.
Price-Anderson protections would expire after Dec. 31, 2025, under current law. The House in February passed an unrelated bill that also contained a 40-year Price-Anderson extension.
In a joint statement, Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said they inserted the language into what is widely considered a must-pass appropriations bill that President Joe Biden (D) on Thursday said he would sign.
“The extension of the Price-Anderson Act in the minibus sends a clear message that we are committed to the advancement of this safe and reliable power source, but this is only the first step,” Caper and Capito wrote in the statement.
Carper and Capito also kept up the drum beat for passing broader nuclear reforms by the end of this session of Congress, which is less than a year away. The two partnered to get the text of Capito’s Advance Act into the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, and though the House stripped the language out, the lower chamber subsequently passed its own package of nuclear reforms that was similar in many respects to Capito’s bill.
“We must send bipartisan legislation to boost the development and deployment of new nuclear technologies to the president’s desk this year, and we are united in our commitment to doing so,” Carper and Capito wrote in the joint statement.
