Morgan Lewis’s market-leading nuclear energy practice represents governments and businesses as they seize opportunities in the nuclear sector. Collaborating across our global offices, we assist our clients with a full array of regulatory, litigation, and transactional needs.
Our lawyers represent companies across the spectrum of nuclear regulatory and adjudicatory matters, such as the acquisition of nuclear facilities and the reorganization of nuclear assets. We rely on our informed command of the interplay between commercial and regulatory considerations in the transfer of licenses under US or non-US regulatory regimes to resolve specialized tax problems, antitrust questions, insurance issues, and complex employment and labor relations issues. We also are active in negotiating engineering, procurement, and construction contracts on behalf of new plants.
We work closely with clients on all aspects of new reactor projects, and we help clients in developing nations comply with the legal regulatory framework for nuclear projects.
Current Nuclear Plant Regulation & License Renewal
We counsel nuclear utilities on nearly every aspect of nuclear licensing, regulation, and related investigation, enforcement, and adjudicatory matters. Clients turn to us for guidance on recovering from regulatory-imposed shutdowns and negative ratings from regulators. Our lawyers conduct investigations for clients and defend them when needed. We also assist with license renewals for existing reactors—to date, we have represented more than half of all license renewal applicants in the United States.
Enrichment & Fuel Cycle
We represent a diverse group of companies involved in uranium recovery, enrichment, and the manufacture and transport of finished fuel products. Academic institutions and manufacturing and healthcare companies that use radioactive materials also call on our services.
Nuclear Waste Management & Decommissioning
Morgan Lewis has successfully handled some of the industry's most challenging radioactive waste management, decontamination, and decommissioning issues. We assist clients with choosing and implementing project models for performing decommissioning, negotiating commercial agreements, and developing decontamination and decommissioning plans. We also counsel on financial assurance requirements for decommissioning liabilities, and we have experience with trust agreements, investment management arrangements, compliance issues relating to investments, and the tax treatment of decommissioning trust funds.
Safety Culture, Work Environment & Whistleblower Issues
Our experience has taught us that a company’s safety culture, work environment, and whistleblower issues are best addressed proactively and comprehensively. To this end, we offer clients strategic capabilities and sophisticated counsel in the following areas:
- Safety and compliance culture, safety-conscious work environment (SCWE), and employee concerns programs
- Internal reviews and government investigations involving allegations of retaliation, “chilling effect,” and other types of wrongdoing
- Whistleblower retaliation litigation and enforcement proceedings, including private and government-sponsored mediation
- Manager, supervisor, and staff training on safety culture, SCWE, and preventing whistleblower retaliation
- Management and executive counseling on emerging safety culture, compliance, and SCWE issues
Regarding proceedings involving alleged whistleblower retaliation, our lawyers assist companies conducting business in the energy industry across the United States with allegations of retaliation brought under various federal energy and environmental statutes, including the following:
- Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 (ERA), 42 USC 5851
- US Department of Energy Contractor Employee Protection Program, 10 CFR Part 708
- Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 USC 7622
- Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 USC 9610
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission Employee Protection Regulations, 10 CFR 50.7
- Pipeline Safety Improvement Act (PSIA), 49 USC 60129
- Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), 42 USC 300j-9(i)
- Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), 42 USC 2622
- Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1976 (SWDA), 42 USC 6971
Export Controls
Morgan Lewis routinely counsels US companies on US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) export and import control restrictions. We also advise on US Department of Energy (DOE) export control requirements, as well as related US Department of Commerce requirements.
Price-Anderson Act
Our team has in-depth knowledge of the Price-Anderson Act and a nuanced understanding of its substantive and procedural aspects, its implementing regulations, and related insurance coverages.
We advise clients on coverage under Price-Anderson and related private sector insurance for nuclear liability claims resulting from radiological incidents and nuclear energy hazards, including but not limited to NRC licensees and DOE contractors. We also counsel on the impact of Price-Anderson to companies outside the nuclear energy industry and universities that handle radioactive materials that pose a risk of nuclear liability. Additionally, our litigators collaborate closely with our nuclear energy team to defend radiation toxic-tort cases and pursue claims for indemnification from nuclear hazards under Price-Anderson. Our lawyers also advise on the interplay between Price-Anderson and international treaties covering nuclear liability for third parties.
In addition, because Price-Anderson establishes the basis for much of the DOE’s nuclear safety enforcement regime, independent of its basis for providing nuclear liability coverage, we advise DOE contractors on self-assessments and corrective action programs that meet the DOE’s expectations and nuclear safety requirements. We also assist companies in investigating and defending against DOE enforcement actions and loss of fee awards.
Nuclear Propulsion
The development and use of nuclear propulsion can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from large diesel-powered cargo vessels and shorten the travel time to Mars to just a few months. This is not science fiction—it is innovation and investment in next-generation nuclear technology at work, encompassing nuclear thermal propulsion, advanced fission reactors, fusion reactors, small modular reactors, and more.
Our lawyers’ expansive knowledge of the nuclear industry transcends the energy industry, as clients increasingly look to us to help them navigate the legal challenges tied to nuclear propulsion for commercial marine vessels and spacecraft.
We enjoy the challenges posed by novel technologies and new industries, like those being applied to nuclear propulsion development and utilization. We thrive on collaboration, combining diverse elements of our firm’s deep bench of lawyers in new and creative ways. Our work on behalf of clients in this space includes analyzing regulatory issues, helping clients protect their intellectual property, assisting with government contracts and funding issues, an advising on international trade and classified information.
We regularly work with the following departments and agencies, among others:
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- US Department of Commerce
- US Department of Defense
- US Department of Energy
- US Department of Justice
- US Environmental Protection Agency
- US General Accountability Office
- US General Services Administration
- US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
