Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co. v. United States

In the Energy Policy Act of 1992, Congress imposed liability upon nuclear electric power companies that had purchased *1359enriched uranium from the United States — the purchases having been made as far back as 1969 — for a substantial portion of the government’s costs of decontaminating the plants in which it had enriched the uranium. The three appellants — electric utilities that had purchased enriched uranium from the government for their nuclear power plants and who were subject to, and had paid part of, the statutory liability — sued the United States in the Court of Federal Claims,…