Liabilities Management Authority

Publication date: July 2002

Summary
Today (4th July) the Government will announce plans for how our worsening radioactive waste crisis that has accumulated over 50 years is to be managed.

The proposals centre on the creation of a Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) which will assume responsibility on behalf of the taxpayer for the estimated £40 billion bill for cleaning up the radioactive waste mountain. This move effectively bails out the technically insolvent BNFL, freeing it to expand its nuclear waste-creating businesses.

The proposals fail to address the root cause of the problems of radioactive waste; namely its generation from nuclear power station operation, fuel fabrication and the reprocessing of spent fuel.

Worse, the LMA removes over £40 billion of debt from the accounts of nuclear companies (such as BNFL) that created the problem, freeing them to pursue an aggressive nuclear expansion programme.