Can you name a single case where the heavy hand of government is being phased out in favor of the private sector? And we don't mean cases of slight deregulation (CAB, FCC) which change details, but not the principle; we mean government turning over an economic enterprise like the US Postal Service or Amtrak to private companies. Laughable, isn't it?
Well stop laughing, because there is such a case: Nuclear insurance. Of the total liability, $140 million is covered by private insurance pools, $340 million by utilities, and the government (as of Sept. 1978) covered only the last and highest $80 million. But even that remaining share is decreasing and will be phased out completely by 1985, and possibly earlier, by the Price-Anderson Act as amended two years ago.
Why is there a limit? There isn't. Any other type of insurance has a limit (e.g., insurance against aircraft crashes usually has a limit per single crash, no matter how many victims share the limited compensation), only Price-Anderson declares congressional intent to protect the public above the formally stated limit of $560 million if necessary.
Since everybody is covered against a nuclear accident under Price-Anderson already, this coverage is excluded in homeowner's policies¾and that is the only reason.
These are the facts; but now for opinions: We do not support the P.A. act, because we feel there are two things wrong with it: There is no need to wait until 1985 for the government to get out of the insurance business; it can get out this week. And there is no need to make nuclear insurance infinitely more lavish than for any other energy industry (no-fault collection, congressional intent, etc.).
But these remaining two flaws are obviously not the world's most urgent problems. A more interesting aspect of P.A. is the way it reveals those who rely on endlessly repeated, third-hand information to claim that P.A. proves nuclear power tied to big government and unsafe.
In 1976, the (government-owned and operated) Teton Dam in Idaho broke, killed 8 people and did $1 billion damage (for a crummy 20 MW hydroelectric, by the way); what was the coverage for the victims?
Zilch.
It took three months for President Ford to declare the flooded region a disaster area, and some more legal manoeuvering before the first victims began to be compensated. That does not, of course, make a case for P.A.; but it does give one of hundreds of examples where genuine students of big government, insurance and safety would go if these really were the issues that interested them.
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Vol. 7, No. 3
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 7 Issue/No.: Vol. 7, No. 3 Date: November 01, 1979 02:52 PM Title: Hairshirts or energy?
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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