§9701 — Title 42 The Public Health and Welfare | U.S. Code

Summary

Creates a five-year federal research, development, and demonstration program starting in fiscal year 1981 to make nuclear power plants safer. Congress says nuclear power is one of two main sources for U.S. electricity late in the 1900s. Continued use depends on very high safety and public trust. Utilities are responsible for designing and running plants safely. The federal government should, besides regulating, run research to give scientific and technical help for safer design and operation. The program’s goals are to lower the chance and seriousness of major nuclear accidents and to cut the chance that such accidents would disturb people living near the plants.

Title 42, §9701

The Public Health and Welfare — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Congress finds that—

(1)nuclear energy is one of the two major energy sources available for electric energy production in the United States during the balance of the twentieth century;

(2)continued development of nuclear power is dependent upon maintaining an extremely high level of safety in the operation of nuclear plants, and on public recognition that these facilities do not constitute a significant threat to human health or safety;

(3)it is the responsibility of utilities, as owners and operators of nuclear powerplants, to assure that such plants are designed and operated safely and reliably; and

(4)a proper role of the Federal Government in assuring nuclear powerplant safety, in addition to its regulatory function, is the conduct of a research, development, and demonstration program to provide important scientific and technical information which can contribute to sound design and safe operation of these plants.

(b)It is declared to be the policy of the United States and the purpose of this chapter to establish a research, development, and demonstration program for developing practical improvements in the generic safety of nuclear powerplants during the next five years, beginning in the fiscal year 1981. The objectives of such program shall be—

(1)to reduce the likelihood and severity of potentially serious nuclear powerplant accidents; and

(2)to reduce the likelihood of disrupting the population in the vicinity of nuclear powerplants as the result of nuclear powerplant accidents.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Short Title

Pub. L. 96–567, § 1, Dec. 22, 1980, 94 Stat. 3329, provided: “That this Act [enacting this chapter] may be cited as the ‘Nuclear Safety Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1980’.”

§9701 Congressional findings and declaration of policy

Summary

Title 42, §9701

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Short Title

Citations & Metadata