Committee Accomplishments

As Chairman of the Commerce, Trade & Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Stearns held over 30 hearings in the 109th Congress on such issues as energy prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Spyware, identity theft and data security, steroids in sports, counterfeit products, automobile safety, consumer privacy, automobile repair, and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Dubai Port deal).

Identity Theft and Data Security - The subcommittee has held a series of hearings on privacy, identity theft, and data security. Stearns authored H.R. 4127, the Data Accountability and Trust Act (DATA Act). The measure protects consumers by requiring notification of security breaches and establishes stronger procedures for protecting consumer information. The full Committee approved H.R. 4127.

Spyware - Stearns' subcommittee took up the issue of Spyware, a program that is secretly loaded onto a victim's computer without their knowledge. Stearns amended H.R. 29, the SPY Act, substituting his language, which was later passed by the House.

Steroids in Sports - Held the first hearing on steroids in sports. This led to Stearns offering H.R. 3084, the Drug Free sports Act, which would establish stronger penalties for steroid use and apply Olympic standards for testing. The full committee approved this bill. In response to this bill, MLB adopted the tougher penalties provided for in the bill.

Energy Prices - Stearns held a hearing to look at fuel prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Stearns offered an amendment, which was adopted, to Committee legislation giving the FTC the authority, for the first time, to investigate and prosecute instances of price gouging in an emergency. Stearns' provision was expanded and approved by the full House in H.R. 5253.

Foreign Ownership of U.S. Ports - After the proposed sale of management of U.S. ports to Dubai; legislation to reform the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) was offered. Stearns' subcommittee considered this bill, H.R. 5337, which was later adopted by the House.

Violent Video Games - Stearns' subcommittee looked at the rating and marketing of video games, with a special focus on children accessing games with inappropriate content. The subcommittee learned that ratings are provided to games without anyone playing through the entire game to see the full content. Stearns has offered legislation, H.R. 6113, the Truth in Video Games Act, requiring that an entire game by reviewed for ratings.

Car Title Fraud - Stearns examined the fraudulent practice of passing off flood-damaged or salvaged vehicles as ready for the road through cleaning or 'washing' their titles. Stearns authored H.R. 6093, the Damaged Vehicle Information Act, to require the disclosure of vehicle information.



Committee on Energy and Commerce Accomplishments:


House OKs E&C Anti-Spyware Bill


Bono: 'Consumers Have A Right to Know'

The House passed H.R. 29, the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act (SPY ACT), by 393-4 on May 23, 2005.

The legislation was authored by U.S. Reps. Mary Bono, R-Calif., and Ed Towns, D-N.Y., and championed by U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, John D. Dingell, D-Mich., Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

Spyware can be slipped into a computer without the user's knowledge. Malicious spyware opens the door to abuses ranging from pornographic pop-ups to browser hijacking. A heavy accumulation can overwhelm an operating system and crash the computer.

"Daily Web activities by consumers have become stalking grounds for computer hackers through spyware," Rep. Bono said. "Consumers regularly and unknowingly are downloading software programs that have the ability to track their every move."

This legislation:

• Prohibits home page hijacking, keystroke logging and Web-based phishing.

• Lets consumers opt in before software is installed.

• Requires that monitoring software be easily disabled at the direction of the consumer.

• Provides for FTC enforcement with significant monetary penalties for violators.

• Sets up a uniform national rule, as Internet commerce is inherently interstate.



DATA Bill Passes 41-0


The committee on March 29 unanimously approved new data security laws that will ensure consumers' personal information is closely guarded and consumers are notified when they are at risk. H.R. 4127, the Data Accountability and Trust Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R- Fla., passed 41-0.

"Nobody needs to be left in the dark when their data has been compromised by a crook," said Chairman Joe Barton. "Financial information has benefitted from security protections for many years. But criminals can cause harm with other sensitive personal information that many companies have and it is time for a federal standard which protects that information."

The bipartisan legislation will help prevent identity theft, a growing criminal problem that has affected at least 10 million Americans. The bill places new requirements on specific companies that specialize in collecting personal data. These data brokers will be required to implement effective security safeguards. If there is a reasonable risk of identity theft to the individual to whom the personal information relates, fraud or other unlawful conduct, these data brokers must notify consumers. Additionally, data brokers will be prohibited from falsely representing themselves to obtain personal data.

"This is legislation that consumers deserve if we are to help them and our economy defeat the growing menace of identity theft," said U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., chairman of the Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. Stearns is the lead sponsor of H.R. 4127 and co-sponsors include House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, and 14 members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Federal Trade Commission says that during a one-year period estimated losses from ID theft translated into $48 billion for businesses and $5 billion to consumers.



America Needs American Energy


The committee worked quickly in early 2006 to address rising gas prices by holding five crude oil-related hearings and four markups.

The House passed two committee bills – H.R. 5253, the Federal Energy Price Protection Act of 2006, and H.R. 5254, the Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act.

H.R. 5253 directs the FTC to define "price gouging," "wholesale sale" and "retail sale" and provides for strong civil and criminal enforcement.

H.R. 5254 establishes a federal coordinator who will convene all federal agencies responsible for issuing permits to develop a facility and help them coordinate and expedite their schedules so that decisions on permits can move efficiently. It also gives EPA scheduling priority, preserving the strict environmental standards that must be met for these facilities to be developed.

Another bill, H.R. 5359, which passed the committee on May 10, 2006 and is awaiting House floor action, provides NHTSA definitive authority to set passenger CAFE standards and turn the program into a size-based system – i.e., adopting unique requirements for compact, mid-size and full-size models.

"There's more to CAFE than pulling a mile-per-gallon number out of the air and slapping it on a car window," said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas. "If window-dressing was all that we wanted, we could declare 100 miles a gallon to be the rule and walk away. We'd be walking, all right, because the automobile industry couldn't meet that particular standard."

In a separate markup in late June, the committee approved five other energy-related measures on June 20, 2006.

The committee also approved unanimously five other energy bills on June 20, 2006:

- H.R. 5534 helps expand the availability of alternative fuels and would be funded by penalties collected under the CAFE program.

- H.R. 5632 directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to create methods to rate the fuel efficiency of tires.

- H.R. 5611 creates a partnership between the Department of Energy and industry groups to educate U.S. drivers about the things they can do to use less fuel.

- H.R. 5646 provides for an EPA study and report to Congress within 90 days on energy consumption of computer server data centers by the federal government and private entities.

- H.R. 2730, the United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Act, sets up a grant program at Department of Energy to fund cooperative joint ventures between private entities and academics

in the U.S. and Israel to research, develop and commercialize new technologies in alternative energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy.



Reforming Medicaid
Bill Slows Welfare Program’s - Growth Rate by .3%, Halts Abuses

Reforms designed to rescue the Medicaid program by slowing its growth, halting abuse and letting states tailor programs to their own citizens were signed into law on Feb. 8, 2006. No Democrat supported the reforms.

Medicaid is a 1960s-vintage welfare program that provides America’s neediest with health care paid for by taxpayers. It is not an earned benefit like Medicare or Social Security. The program is both “free” and break-the-bank expensive.

“The necessary reforms are hardly draconian,” says Chairman Joe Barton. “They amount to slowing the growth rate by 0.3 percent. Medicaid will still grow by 7 percent.” With reforms in place, an added $66 billion would be spent on health care for the poor over five years. In total, the federal government will spend nearly $200 billion this year to provide health care to low- and moderate-income senior citizens.

The reforms authored by the committee:

· Stop overpayment for medicine and halts abuse. Medicaid famously could pay $5,336 for a prescription that costs the pharmacist $88, and until recently, bought Viagra for prison inmates.

· Restrict “elder law” attorneys from qualifying wealthy clients for taxpayer-paid nursing home care.

· Give patients a stake in both their care and its cost by charging $5 co-pays.

· Trust the states to adjust programs to fit their needs.

· Require states to use basic identification documents, like drivers licenses or passports, to prevent illegal aliens from getting Medicaid coverage.



Committee Examines Internet Child Porn


One in five children receives unwanted sexual solicitations online and experts say that Internet child exploitation is a billion-dollar industry growing in size and brutality.

At the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee's first hearing, teenage victim Justin Berry described in graphic detail the threat facing our kids online, the lengths to which child sexual predators will go to find and exploit children and the insufficient response by federal law enforcement.

"For five years, beginning when I was 13 years old, I operated a pornographic Web site, featuring images of myself loaded onto the Internet by webcams," he said. "My experience is not as isolated as you might hope. … There are hundreds of kids in the United States alone who are right now wrapped up in this horror."

Berry provided federal prosecutors with evidence implicating hundreds but, at the time, only two faced criminal charges.

Uninformed parents, cocky teenagers and tech-savvy predators make child exploitation possible, Connecticut Detective Frank Dannahey testified. "I have seen technology change in a direction that both benefits and assists online predators in carrying out their criminal activity," he said. "With the majority of America's teens online, the pool of potential online victims is vast. … Teens are very vulnerable online."

Dannahey added: "Parents are scared to death out there, especially the ones that aren't that Internet-savvy."

Since the subcommittee's initial April 4 hearing:

• DOJ launched an initiative to combat child predators, including an effort to prod Internet service providers to adopt uniform data retention policies.

• Google moved to "blacklist" some business partners after committee staff alerted the world's largest search engine that it was actively selling advertising to Web sites that promote online child pornography.

• Comcast announced it will extend from a month to six months the period that it retains Internet addresses. The subcommittee's investigation revealed that Comcast couldn't comply with a law enforcement request for data that was only three days old.



Lawmakers Slam BP For Pipeline Mishap


Members of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee chastised BP for its handling of its shutdown in Prudhoe Bay in August 2006. The company shut down two pipelines responsible for 400,000 barrels a day of oil production after finding severe corrosion.

This hearing comes on the heels of BP's March 2006 pipeline failure, when 200,000 gallons of oil spilled. Committee investigators were told then that the mishap was an anomaly and not indicative of pervasive corrosion problems. Many of the questions for BP executives, including the presidents of BP America, Bob Malone, and BP Exploration Alaska, Steve Marshall, focused on a maintenance process called "pigging". Scraper pigs clean the lines and smart pigs detect potential problems. The last smart pig run on one pipeline was in 1998; the other line was smart pigged in 1992. No BP witness had sufficient answers as to why BP had failed to provide adequate maintenance.

"It seems to me that BP was betting the company and their field that this field would be depleted before major parts of the pipeline failed and needed to be replaced, said Chairman Joe Barton.

Another BP executive, Richard Woollam, the manager for corrosion, inspection and chemicals for BP Exploration Alaska, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. An internal investigation turned up evidence of employee intimidation and Woollam, suspected of intimidating and threatening other employees, was removed from his managerial role in Alaska in 2004.



E&C Investigates: Millions Wasted by E-Rate


Capping a year-long investigation, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee issued a bipartisan staff report chronicling the E-rate program's waste, fraud and abuse and identifying reforms needed to repair a broken system.

Five hearings had laid bare a system of waste, fraud and abuse in a program using a tax on telephone calls to bring schools into the Internet Age. In one famous case, $101.2 million was spent from 1998 to 2001 to equip Puerto Rico's 1,540 schools with high-speed Internet access,

but the committee found very few computers actually connected and $23 million in equipment sitting in unopened boxes in a warehouse.

"The government mismanagement of the E-rate program seemed to know few bounds," said Chairman Joe Barton. "Unscrupulous vendors fleeced the program while underserved communities and telephone customers paid the price. It was a disgrace."

Findings of the report include these:

• The FCC's key oversight mechanisms failed.

• Some school districts acquired goods and services without using a formal bidding process.

• Some vendors manipulated the competitive process without being detected.

• The E-rate program's ambiguous rules and procedures, and funding delays, create significant confusion among applicants and vendors, contributing to program waste.



Committee Probes H-P Spy Scandal - Data Broker Investigation Continues


The Hewlett-Packard corporate spying scandal opened many eyes to the questionable practice of pretexting, which jeopardizes privacy and puts personal data at risk. But committee members were already eight months into an investigation that included a series of hearings and passage of legislation designed to punish pretexting. Of course, the H-P scandal raised new questions about privacy and corporate spying that the committee sought to answer in a hearing that featured top company executives.

According to news accounts, H-P hired outside investigators, overseen by executives, to determine how reporters received confidential information about the H-P board. Reports said that investigators hired by H-P used pretexting – the use of lies and deception to gain access to information that is not publicly available and without the victim's consent – to obtain phone records of board members and employees, and journalists covering H-P.

Several top H-P executives were invited to testify, including: Mark Hurd, H-P chairman and CEO; Patricia Dunn, former chairman of H-P; Ann Baskins, H-P general counsel; Fred Adler, H- P computer security investigator; Larry Sonsini, outside attorney; Joe Depante, owner of Action Research Group in Melbourne, Fla. The committee issued subpoenas for two Hewlett-Packard executives, senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker and global security manager Anthony Gentilucci. Ron DeLia, operator of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., in Boston, also received a subpoena from the committee. After news of the scandal broke, then-chairman Dunn resigned.

"It's an unknown whether the higher-ups at H-P knew how the information was obtained, but somebody at H-P had to know how they obtained these records," said Committee Chairman Joe Barton. "Phone records and things like that would not be the type of information the people being investigated would voluntarily divulge."

In an effort to learn more about H-P executives' involvement in the probe, the committee requested thousands of pages of documents from the company. The California attorney general, U.S. attorney's office, Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission also initiated investigations.

The committee had already unanimously approved legislation that would strengthen laws against pretexting in March 2006. The bill gave the Federal Trade Commission clearer authority to bring action against those that use or benefit from the practice of pretexting. Also, the bill increased FCC fines on phone companies that sell or allow personal phone data to be released. Fines for carriers, or their affiliates, increases to a maximum $300,000 per violation, up from $100,000. Multiple violations could result in a maximum fine of $3 million.

Additionally, the subcommittee also called six wireless phone carriers and key government regulators to testify on their efforts to combat pretexting. Invited companies include U.S. Cellular, T-Mobile USA, Cingular Wireless, Alltel Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless.

Also called were Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras.



Meth Attacks People & the Environment


In early 2006, Congress made it tougher to cook common cold remedies into killer methamphetamines, a cheap drug that destroys its users and poisons the land.

"For people who hail from more rural parts of our country, like myself, meth is an increasing problem," said U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio, at an October 20, 2005, joint hearing of his Environmental and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee and the Health Subcommittee chaired by U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga.

"There were 7,700 domestic, small toxic labs making meth in 2001, and that number has doubled to possibly as many as 16,000 in 2004," Gillmor said.

Methamphatamines also poison the landscape. It has been estimated that labs produce five to seven pounds of extremely toxic waste for each pound of meth they create. "It probably comes as no surprise that the crooks who cook up illegal methamphetamines in illegal labs do not heed any environmental restrictions on the disposal of byproducts," Chairman Barton pointed out

"We need to make it more difficult for criminals to buy these chemicals, but we don't need to make it impossible for law-abiding families to buy cold medicine at the drugstore," Barton said.

In reporting on the issue, the Chicago Tribune noted that "government drug-fighters have rarely faced a threat like this: an extremely dangerous stimulant, causing violent and paranoid behavior, which can be made using relatively cheap and widely available cold medicines."



Pro Sports, Anti-Steroids


Lawmakers delivered a bipartisan rebuke of performance-enhancing drugs in sports as the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 38-2 on June 29, 2005, to approve the Drug Free Sports Act of 2005 (H.R. 3084).

The bill establishes a minimum standard for drug testing programs in U.S. sports leagues and a "three-strikes-and-you're-out" approach to violators. This bill will send a strong and clear signal to our younger athletes that steroids are the tools of the cheater, not a quick fix to get to the top," said U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., the bill's author. "Illegal steroid use is unethical, unhealthy, and if left unnoticed or ignored, will corrode the integrity and honor of some of the most beloved professional sports in America." Dr. Charles E. Yesalis of Penn State University testified that a million school-age youths had used anabolic steroids. Lawmakers also heard the tragic story of Taylor Hooton, a Plano, Texas, high school pitcher whose use of steroids prefaced his suicide. H.R. 3084 requires professional sports to randomly test each athlete at least five times per year. Penalties would include a half-season suspension for first violation, one full season for second violation and permanent suspension for third violation. It would also give flexibility to reduce penalties in exceptional circumstances where the athlete bears little or no fault.



321-101 Vote Scraps Pay TV Regs


Better Service, Lower Prices

The House raised the curtain on a new day in pay-television, inviting real competition and lower prices by voting to scrap the old government regulations that stand between subscribers and price cuts.

H.R. 5252, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006, will set the stage for new video services that will offer movies, sports and other programs in thousands of places where cable TV is the only pay TV. Modern broadband technology can deliver television programming, but not when competition is prohibited. The new legislation will ensure revenues continue to flow to cities and towns, but it will create a national approval process for pay-TV providers. Under the national franchise system, all pay-TV providers will compete, driving down prices as consumers finally get more than a Hobson's choice.

The Barton-Rush bill "seeks to strike the right balance between ensuring that the public Internet remains an open, vibrant marketplace and ensuring that Congress does not hand the FCC a blank check to regulate Internet services," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, who sponsored the legislation along with U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. The House rejected an amendment whose backers said it would preserve "neutrality" by putting the Federal Communications Commission in charge of deciding how the Internet should work. "We do need the FCC to stop the cheats without killing honest creativity," Barton said. "We don't need anybody to be the first Secretary of the Internet."

Specifically, the Barton-Rush bill would:

• Create a national approval process, known as a "franchise," for telephone carriers and cable providers that offer subscription television. By streamlining this system, more competitors will offer services that are similar to cable TV, resulting in lower prices and more choices for consumers.

• Improve competition between Intenet-based telephone services and traditional telephone services.

• Establish penalties of up to $500,000 per violation for broadband providers that block or degrade lawful content. The Federal Communications Commission would have, for the first time, explicit power to go after companies that violate network neutrality principles.

• Preserve municipalities' right to collect up to six percent in fees from pay-TV providers. A portion of this fee will go toward ensuring local communities can continue to offer public, educational and governmental stations.

• Allow localities to retain control of their rights-of-way and ensure local jurisdictions still receive the franchise fees they collected under the current system. Also permits cities and towns to develop their own broadband networks.


CUTLINE: President Bush signed legislation on June 15, 2006, that raised broadcast

indecency fines from $32,500 to $325,000. The penalty will create significant consequences for broadcasters who violate decency laws. Both television and radio broadcasters would be subject to the fine increase. The committee first passed indecency legislation sponsored by Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., in February 2003.



Safer Lives, Sharper Pictures
First Responders, Consumers Will Gain from Switch to Digital TV


"2009 will be the year America goes all digital. The analog TV signals that have come into our homes over the air since the birth of TV will end the night before, and a great technical revolution that has been in the making for years will finally be complete," said Chairman Joe Barton. "If we learned anything from 9-11 and Katrina, we learned that our first responders are woefully unequipped as it relates to interoperability," Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton, R- Mich., added. "Clearing spectrum for our first responders is not only the right thing to do, it surely helps us be better prepared for our next emergency. The stakes are too high for Congress not to get the job done."

The DTV legislation won committee approval on October 26, 2005, by a vote of 33 to 17. It was signed into law on February 8, 2006.


Benefits of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Digital Television Transition Act include:

• Making communities safer. The 9/11 Commission recommends expedited return of this spectrum to improve homeland security. Many rescue squads and police and fire departments already have radio equipment built to communicate over the spectrum the broadcasters are supposed to return. They are just waiting for the turnover.

• Bringing new services to consumers and lowering prices. The commercial uses for the spectrum are practically limitless, such as accelerated deployment of wireless broadband, especially to rural areas, and expanded choice in high-speed voice, video and data services.

• Reducing the federal deficit. The spectrum auction will bring in billions of dollars to reduce the deficit. Several studies suggest that the auction could raise $20 to 30 billion.


Specifically the legislation accomplishes the following:

• Requires all TV broadcasters to transition from analog to digital TV transmissions and return the spectrum now used for analog broadcasts.

• Allocates up to $1.5 billion for a digital-to-analog converter box program for over-the-air viewers.

• Creates a $1 billion program to fund new communications equipment for first responders.

• Improves communications interoperability among first responders by freeing up more spectrum for public safety.



Katrina & Rita Spur Refinery Bill
Goal was More Gasoline at Lower Prices


The committee OK'd by voice vote the Gasoline for America's Security Act after hurricanes shut down the Gulf Coast's oil refineries, leaving drivers nationwide to cope with price spikes and dry pumps. No Democrat supported more refinery capacity.

"This disaster underscored the fact that refining capacity has affected gas prices," said U.S. Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla. Added U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa.: "People can't fill their gas tanks or heat their homes with politics."

The proposed changes include these:

• Refinery siting reforms.

• Lopping the number of "boutique" fuels from 17 to six.

• Potential refineries on federal lands, including closed military installations.

• A DOE program to support carpoolers.

• Price gouging, as defined by the Federal Trade Commission, would be outlawed.

• FTC required to report on the price of refined petroleum products on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

• A city or region may ask for an extension of clean air sanction deadlines if local leaders can demonstrate that their pollution blows in from elsewhere.

• FERC authorized to monitor natural gas gathering line operators to help prevent monopolistic practices that can increase consumer costs.

After six years of toil and a string of failed attempts, the Congress enacted a major energy bill. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 conference report passed 275 to 156 in the House, with 75 Democrats voting for the bill. It was signed into law on August 8, 2005. "This energy bill is about America's future," said Chairman Joe Barton. "I'm delighted by the House's strong bipartisan support for our bill and look for a similar victory in the Senate later this week," added U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman. "I congratulate Mr. Barton and Mr. Dingell on a notable success... I am as proud of the process as I am of our bill."

H.R. 6 represents the most sweeping energy legislation in decades. Specifically, the bill will do the following:

• Addresses rising gasoline prices and our dependency on foreign oil. Encourages domestic production of oil with incentives such as a streamlined permit process; promotes a greater refining capacity to bring more gasoline to market; and increases the gasoline supply by stopping the proliferation of expensive regional boutique fuels. To scale back demand for oil, the proposal encourages vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells and increases funding for improving fuel-efficiency standards.

• Improves our nation's electricity transmission capacity and reliability to stop future blackouts through the adoption of reliability standards, incentives for transmission grid improvements and reform of transmission siting rules.

• Promotes clean and renewable fuels by providing incentives for clean coal and nuclear technologies and renewable energies such as biomass, wind, solar and hydroelectricity.

• Extends Daylight Saving Time by four weeks to reduce energy consumption by the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil for each day of the extension.

• Repeals a Depression-era regulatory program that restricted investment in the nation's electricity infrastructure. Its repeal will help spur investment in the infrastructure, bringing added reliability to the U.S. electricity grid.

• Boosts production of clean natural gas to help alleviate soaring prices for the low-emission fuel. Specifically, the bill breaks the bureaucratic logjam that has stymied work on approximately 40 LNG facilities.

• Encourages more nuclear and hydropower production by authorizing the Department of Energy to develop accelerated programs for the production and supply of electricity. Extends Price-Anderson indemnification and offers nuclear plant risk insurance incentives.