US speaks to India's leaders for easier nuclear liability laws

Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Dan Strumpf, Bloomberg News on Jan 18, 2025

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The U.S. has spoken with Indian leaders across the political spectrum to get them to review the South Asian nation’s strict regulations for makers of nuclear reactors, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to India said.

In an interview in New Delhi on Thursday, Ambassador Eric Garcetti said leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as opposition parties were interested in looking for a “way forward” on the matter.

Currently, India has some of the world’s strictest nuclear liability laws, under which not just the plant operators, but also makers of reactors can be held responsible in the event of an accident. These regulations have impeded several proposed projects in India, including one with France to construct the world’s largest nuclear power plant in the western Maharashtra state.

Garcetti’s remarks come just days after President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the U.S. is finalizing steps to remove longstanding barriers to civil nuclear cooperation with India.

“Formal paperwork will be done soon” to scrap regulations that prevented Indian entities and American companies from cooperating on nuclear energy projects, Sullivan said during his last official visit to New Delhi.

President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is also “focused and excited” about making progress on the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal, which was announced nearly two decades ago, Garcetti said. Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Biden had discussed ways to revive the nuclear trade, he said.

The discussions come amid major breakthroughs in civil nuclear technology. Garcetti cited the example of U.S.-made small nuclear reactors that can operate in places where traditional power plants cannot. The combination of India’s cheap and trained workforce and American technology could hold a “huge opportunity” for the South Asian nation, provided the laws are relaxed, he added.

India, one of the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitters, is seeking to rapidly expand use of nuclear power to both decarbonize and meet rising energy demand. Currently, there are 22 nuclear reactors in the country that are run by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

Lifting sanctions on Indian atomic research institutions by the U.S. is a “welcome step,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry External Affairs on Friday. It will lead “to greater collaboration and hopefully issues like the liability clause will also be discussed and taken forward.”