In a narrow 27-23 vote this Friday evening, the Senatus Terras has approved a controversial bill that will allow private companies to open and maintain nuclear power plants so long as they submit their facilities to quarterly inspections by the newly established Nuclear Power and Research Compliance Commission (NPRCC).
Since 1973, when the Francis Meadows Plant was opened outside of Ashford, the Maximusian government has subcontracted the construction and operation of more than twenty plants, but has never authorized private production of nuclear power. This prohibition was written into Maximusian law in 1976, taking the form of the Taylor-Wyatt Act, which outright prohibited the private generation of energy using nuclear fission (outside of a closely-monitored research capacity). Since then, their have been several failed attempts to overturn the legislation, culminating in a 1999 bill that, if it had passed, would have nearly removed all restrictions on nuclear energy generation by private entities.
Interest among legislators in the privatization of nuclear energy has remerged only over the past five-years, with some environmentalists believing that it could be the key to transitioning the nation away from widespread use of fossil fuels and other less-renewable energy sources. Critics of the bill believe that the privatization of nuclear energy generation will result in decreased safety standards, which could lead to a nuclear catastrophe.
The bill, Nuclear Energy and Research Act, which was introduced to the Senatus Populus in early August 2021 by Diane Myers, a member of the Party of 1837 and representative of Peoria since 2014, gained a surprising amount of traction, notably among members of the National Conservative Party, which vehemently opposed the 1999 bill. It was approved by the SP on September 4, 2021 in a 139-86 vote, and is expected to be signed off on by the President and Chancellor on Monday.