Talk:Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act/Archive 3

message: Removed to Discussion "all nuclear reactors and" as redundant Simesa 09:16, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Redundant Phrase

message: We probably all should read  Simesa 16:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wales Article on Wikipedia

message: The President signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 today - Price-Anderson extension to 2025 was in there. Simesa 20:01, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Price-Anderson Extended 

message: There being no one paragraph in the Supreme Court decision to quote, how about this for "How the law works":
:In the Act, power reactor licensees are required to have $300 million worth of primary insurance as of 2005.  Also, each power reactor must pay up to $95.8 million in the event any of them has an accident. The pool of money — which as of 2004 stood at about $10 billion — is contributed by the nuclear industry.  In the event that claims deplete the pool of funds, the Congress of the United States is required to consider covering the excess amounts, possibly by establishing additional assessments against the industry. 
:Price-Anderson covers DOE facilities and contractors such as the USEC uranium enrichment plants, national laboratories and the Yucca Mountain disposal site.
:Nuclear insurance pools have paid $151 million ($70 million of which was related to the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown) and the DOE $65 million since Price-Anderson was enacted.
Simesa 07:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: How the law works

message: It appears that Ed Poor has quit Wikipedia (see his talk page).  I recommend that we seek another mediator at RFM. · Katefan0(scribble) 17:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There seemingly being no way to continue with Uncle Ed, I have applied for a new Mediator.  We should all read wp:rfm. Simesa 00:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'll be taking over the mediation.  See below.  Ral315 WS 03:55, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  For what it's worth, he will be missed - flaws and all. Benjamin Gatti
I didn't really quit: I was just having a bad day. In any case, there's a new Mediator on duty now. Anything I say from this point on is in my private capacity as an ordinary contributor. Uncle Ed 18:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediation 

message: That we're getting right back into bickering. Mr. Mediator, what would you like for us to do? Uncle Ed had us try using a separate mediation page. Not alot of came of it, but I think it'd be more useful than just continually bickering here. I still think we should just go to arbcom and finish this, but that's just my opinion. --Woohookitty 04:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just afraid that I'll be 45 years old and we'll still be discussing whether or not the GAO is an authoritative resource. It just never ends. --Woohookitty 04:36, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize for not responding in a while...I've been watching what you've been suggesting with interest.  To be perfectly frank, I don't think that ArbCom will take your case; ArbCom usually doesn't deal with content disputes, and you've all been very civil about the article.  Ral315 WS 18:09, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since you came aboard, yes. :-D It's actually been more civil than it was initially. --Woohookitty 01:39, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm afraid

message: The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act (commonly called the Price-Anderson Act) protects investors in nuclear power plants from liability, even for criminal neglect, for the death and destruction caused by nuclear incidents such as Chernobyl. The act currently provides indemnity to all nuclear facilities (except Navy aircraft carriers and submarines) constructed in the United States before 2026.  The Act as been recognized by the United States Supreme Court as a requirement for the private generation of nuclear energy in the United States. In addition, the Supreme Court found  that the risk of a major nuclear accident has not been eliminated by 40 years of research and testing. Environmental groups, consumer groups and taxpayer watchdogs as well as the Department of Energy have described the act as a transfer of wealth from those who earn it (taxpayers) to those who own it (investors). Benjamin Gatti
:I'd say you are trying to cram your entire POV, unbalanced, into the first paragraph.  I strongly prefer the current Intro over the above.  "Private generation" isn't all the Act is necessary for.  Criminal neglect is still speculative (it wasn't, for example, a factor at TMI), and if "wholesale irradiation" were possible in U.S. plants the NRC wouldn't have mandated only a 10 mile Emergency Planning Zone.  One agency (the EIA) of the DOE described it as a subsidy - but there has been no "transfer of wealth" as the government has never paid a dime for commercial plants' incidents, and it's very unlikely it will ever have to. Simesa 20:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The burden of proof is easy, read the first line of the Supreme Court's decision: "The Price-Anderson Act (Act), having the dual purpose of protecting the public [including from incidents at DOE facilities] and encouraging the development of the nuclear energy industry..." (my text in brackets).  If we were to list one thing that the Act would cover, then we should list all the incidents it would cover: a very long laundry list.  I disagree with your somewhat twisted reasoning - no costs have been added to anyone, no other energy producer has paid anything for Price-Anderson.  Market fairness is a subsidiary issue to be dealt with in Criticisms.  "Unsafe" is stil your POV not borne out by the IPE examinations, "dirty" is relative (ever worked around coal?).  And are you really claiming that wealth was transferred away from you specifically?  So now you believe you do have a fiduciary interest in this?  Simesa 02:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Intro 

message: Some stats to consider (commenting on size, not substance)
Introduction: 77 words
: A pretty good length, I think.  Ral315 (talk)
Background: 367 words
: It could be longer, but doesn't need to be if it explains the act fully.  Ral315 (talk)
How the law works: 178 words
: Good length.  Ral315 (talk)
Criticisms: 553 words
: Obviously, this is a problem for many (all?) of you.  If we could boil this down to about 300 words, that would be great.  Ral315 (talk)
I've set up a temp page for editing:  Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act/Temp.  As this is a page invisible to the public, feel free to make sweeping changes.  But note that the ONE-REVERT RULE is still in effect there.  The main article will be unprotected when I feel that we've hit a consensus, or everyone involved wants it unprotected.  Ral315 (talk) 05:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Amazing. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 05:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected. 

message: Okay, I made a first proposed change. Simesa 11:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How the law works 

message: "Protecting" a page on account of 1 to 2 edits a week amounts to censorship. Regardless of the subject or any other thing - it is antithetical to the spirit of wikipedia, and not supported by any published policy. I must therefore object. For comparison, the GWBush page is vandalized about twice a second, but remains open for business nonetheless. A double standard here can only be explained by bias or elitism, and the use of censorship to effect either of those is inconsistent with cooperative nature of wikipedia.. Benjamin Gatti
: Simple vandalism can be reverted easily.  This is a content dispute, and I'm using the protection not to censor anyone, but rather to encourage open discussion and editing on the temp page.  Ral315 (talk) 14:32, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, for what it's worth, I had never heard of the Price-Anderson Act prior to this mediation, and my knowledge of nuclear energy was virtually zero.  Ral315 (talk) 14:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Ral, I'm with ya. I had no idea what it was either. And yes, protection in this case is because people (and it wasn't just you Ben) were making edits without consensus, which defeats the purpose of mediation. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objection to Censorship 

message: I rewrote Criticisms - for the first two paragraphs the changes were minor.
But I'm amazed - no one else objected to the line "Like all subsidies, Price Anderson raises the price of its target commodity by forcing the market to make poor decisions."???  Subsidies immediately lower the price of commodities. If we want to discuss long-term effects of subsidies, we'd need a fairly comprehensive study to cite, as it's not always true that subsidies raise prices in the long-term (windmills, for example).
"Strong financial incentive"?  A reload is $150 million.  Plants should cost about $1.5 billion.  Even the top number, $33 million, if the U.S. government were to charge it, is hardly a deciding factor.
The next line, "The costs of Nuclear energy were grossly underexagerated, and have in fact turned out to be more expensive and dangerous than clean, safe alternatives, such as wind power" is just a commercial for renewables with no impact on Price-Anderson, so I cut it.  (As an aside, nuclear did become far more expensive due to huge building delays when the post-Three Mile Island modifications had to be incorporated, but those modifications - and more - are incorporated up-front now.)
I get the feeling that we are missing some valid criticisms, but I'll have to go back and compare to the current article. Mediation isn't a negotiation as to "what I can get in", it's a decision process as to what should be in.Simesa 08:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticisms

message: I'm reverting because of the following objections to the following lines:
The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act (commonly called the Price-Anderson Act) eliminates public safety laws in all fifty states 
:Nonsense, Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations covers nuclear safety.
and protects criminally negligent nuclear operators from being held financially responsible for criminal acts 
:The Supreme Court said "the utility itself would probably suffer the largest damages", and criminal law is enhanced, not reduced.
The Act makes it a crime for private persons to protect themselves against a nuclear event by insuring their own property against an explosion at a nuclear energy plant. 
:No it doesn't - the situation there is that the industry has already bought up all the insurance available, as required by the Act.
In the event that a corporation commits a criminal act which leads to wide-spread devastation similar to Chernobl, taxpayers and victims, rather than  the corporation will be held financially responsible for the damage. 
:The reactors will be liable for at least $10 billion, but this statement is partially correct - but since Chernobyl was vastly unlike any U.S. power plant, it doesn't belong in the intro.
The Act is part of the Energy Policy of President George W. Bush.
:So what?  Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 with bi-partisan support, why mention Bush but not that?
Simesa 04:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. Again, the problem is that some of edits go so far into POV land that they are unrecoverable. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert of 10/31/05 3 am UTC