Skip to main content

Secretary Clinton in India

Clinton and Krishna Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is visiting India. There are a skein of issues to discuss, but one with special resonance to us:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Tuesday for easier access to the Indian market for US nuclear energy firms, who are trailing their French and Russian competitors.

Here’s what she had to say about that:

"With regard to our civil nuclear agreement... we need to resolve those issues that still remain so we can reap the rewards of a robust energy partnership," Clinton said in opening remarks during her trip to India.

Creating or expanding a market for goods of any stripe is a job creator, so well worth pursuing. Nuclear trade between India and the U.S. is still relatively new – the treaty opening it was one of President George W. Bush’s last major accomplishments – so effort is still needed to resolve lingering issues. The most serious such issue involves liability:

The United States wants India to "tighten up" legislation to protect equipment makers from liability in case of nuclear accidents, saying it is much more stringent than comparable laws in other countries. General Electric and Westinghouse, the U.S.-based arm of Japan's Toshiba Corp , are keen to take a slice of the market.

Now, India has signed onto the relevant international treaty covering liability, the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, but even at the time it did this last year, most nuclear technology vendors – including those in India’s domestic industry – thought it was inadequate to fully address the liability issue. That’s because the Indian parliament had earlier passed a law that conflicts with the conference and does not adequately shield suppliers from lawsuits.

Here’s what the Indian law says (you can read the legislation here):

The operator of the nuclear installation, after paying the compensation for nuclear damage, … shall have a right of recourse where the nuclear incident has resulted as a consequence of an act of supplier or his employee, which includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects of sub-standard services.”

That provision and the lack of a provision prohibiting individual claims run counter to the convention. Here’s the specific provision in the convention:

The right to compensation for nuclear damage may be exercised only against the operator liable, provided that national law may permit a direct right of action against any supplier of funds that are made available pursuant to provisions in national law to ensure compensation through the use of funds from sources other than the operator.”

There’s no particular reason to think the U.S. is asking for something outlandish here – every other country that engages in trade of nuclear technologies follows the terms of the convention.

Now, to be fair, India has the experience of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, which led to the deaths of nearly 4,000 people. (You can read more about this at the National Institutes of Health.) Serious minds can disagree over the extent and quality of Union Carbide’s disposition of its liability obligation, but cannot dispute that the accident has cast a dark shadow over any subsequent consideration of industrial liability in India.

But, to return to a positive posture, it sounds as though India, at least on the executive level, agrees with Clinton. Here are the comments made by Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna:

We reiterated our commitment to taking forward civil nuclear energy cooperation on the basis of full implementation of mutual commitments. We were reassured that United States reaffirmed its commitment for full civil nuclear cooperation. I expressed appreciation for our ongoing engagement and full support of the US for India’s full membership of the four export control regimes and our expectation of progress in tandem on the four regimes. We discussed UNSC reforms and India’s permanent membership of a reformed UN Security Council.

Diplomat-speak, of course, with an excess of politesse, but it shows the U.S. and India in sync on trade issues.

Now, I admit that there isn’t much a story here – Clinton and Krishna don’t seem ready to sign anything and I can’t find much evidence that the Indian parliament will revisit the liability issue imminently. But State is pushing for a reconsideration – that’s a plus – and the Indian equivalent seems open to it – another plus. That’s movement – good for the industry, good for trade balance, good for job creation. It’s a worthy effort that should have a few lights shined on it.

Hillary Clinton and Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should