Trump orders nuclear overhaul

US President Donald Trump has signed four executive orders (EOs) intended to directly support nuclear power development, and a fifth aimed at depoliticising science and restoring scientific integrity. The White House said the four nuclear energy EOs will speed up nuclear reactor testing at Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and expedite applications; clear a path for the DOE and the Pentagon to build nuclear reactors on federally owned land; overhaul the Nuclear Reactor Commission (NRC); and encourage uranium mining and enrichment.

The four nuclear EOs were:

• Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security;
• Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
• Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy; and
• Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base.

The fifth was:

• Restoring Gold Standard Science.

Advanced reactors

The 11-section EO on advanced nuclear reactors (ANRs) covers, among other things: deployment of ANRs at military installation; deployment of ANRs at DOE; uranium and related materials for ANRs; environmental compliance; and promotion of nuclear exports.

It says the US “faces a critical national security imperative to ensure a resilient, secure, and reliable energy supply for critical defence facilities”. Despite the potential of ANRs, the technology “has not been utilised in the United States at the scale or speed necessary to meet the Nation’s urgent national security requirements, while our adversaries are rapidly exporting and deploying such technology around the world”.

It is the policy of the US to: “ensure the rapid development, deployment, and use of advanced nuclear technologies to support national security objectives”; enable private sector investment, innovation, development, and use of ANR technologies “by aligning incentives across the Federal Government to fully leverage federally owned uranium and plutonium resources declared excess to defence needs, related nuclear material, supply chain components, and research and development infrastructure”; and coordinate regulatory efforts across the Department of Defense (DOD) and DOE, “ensuring that these agencies optimise resources and risk allocation”.

As to deployment of ANR technologies at military installations, the Secretary of Defense, through the Secretary of the Army, “shall commence the operation of a nuclear reactor, regulated by the United States Army, at a domestic military base or installation no later than September 30, 2028.”

As to deployment of ANR technologies at DOE facilities, the Secretary of Energy is to initiate the process for designating AI data centres located at or operated in coordination with DOE facilities, “as critical defence facilities, where appropriate”. Within 90 days one or more DOE sites must be designated “for the use and deployment of advanced nuclear reactor technologies”. All available legal authorities must be used to site, approve, and authorise the design, construction, and operation of privately funded advanced nuclear reactor technologies at DOE sites “for the purpose of powering AI infrastructure, other critical or national security needs, supply chain items, or on-site infrastructure”. Early site preparation and authorisation activities will be prioritised “with a goal of operating an advanced nuclear reactor at the first site no later than 30 months from the date of this order”.

On uranium and related materials, within 90 days the Secretary of Energy is to identify all useful uranium and plutonium material within DOE inventories that may be recycled or processed into nuclear fuel for reactors in the US. The Secretary of Energy must “release into a readily available fuel bank not less than 20 metric tons of high assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for any project from the private sector” authorised for construction at a DOE site for the purpose of powering AI and other infrastructure. “To the extent feasible”, the Secretary of Energy must ensure that a long-term supply of enriched uranium is available for the continued operation of these projects “including through the establishment of domestic fuel fabrication and supply chains to reduce reliance on foreign sources of fuel”.

On Environmental Policy Act Compliance, consultations will be held on applying established DOD and DOE categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the construction of ANR technologies on certain Federal sites including: adopting other executive departments categorical exclusions; establishing new categorical exclusions; seeking to utilise other agencies’ emergency and other permitting procedures; and developing alternative arrangements for compliance with NEPA in emergency situations.

As to promoting US nuclear exports, the Secretary of State must “aggressively pursue at least 20 new 123 Agreements by the close of the 120th Congress to enable the United States nuclear industry to access new markets in partner countries”. Within 90 days, the relevant authorities must determine a strategy to:

• optimise the value of the US International Development Finance Corporation to provide equity and other financing of American nuclear energy technology;
• increase the effectiveness of the US Trade & Development Agency “by expanding grant financing for US nuclear technology pilots, fuel supplies, and project preparation to recently graduated high income economies of national strategic interest”;
• leverage the US Export-Import Bank and other relevant agencies to increase financing for projects using US civil nuclear technology exports throughout the project lifecycle;
• hold trade missions and leverage other trade promotion tools to remove trade barriers and increase the competitiveness of the US nuclear industry; and
• achieve competitive parity in the global market for high-level advocacy to foreign governments of potential import countries focusing on those with the highest probability of nuclear deployment within the next four years.

Within 90 days, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with other relevant authorities, must determine a strategy that leverages US participation in multilateral development banks to support client country access to financial and technical assistance for the generation and distribution of nuclear energy and a reliable fuel supply.

Regulatory reform

The five section EO on the NRC notes that, between 1954 and 1978, the US authorised construction of 133 civilian nuclear reactors at 81 NPPs. “Since 1978, the NRC has authorised only a fraction of that number; of these, only two reactors have entered into commercial operation.” The NRC “charges applicants by the hour to process licence applications, with prolonged timelines that maximise fees while throttling nuclear power development. The NRC has failed to licence new reactors even as technological advances promise to make nuclear power safer, cheaper, more adaptable, and more abundant.”

NRC has “tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion”. NRC “utilizes safety models that posit there is no safe threshold of radiation exposure and that harm is directly proportional to the amount of exposure”. Those models “lack sound scientific basis and produce irrational results”.

NRC must be reformed in order to

• Re-establish the US as the global leader in nuclear energy;
• Facilitate increased deployment of new nuclear reactor technologies, including by lowering regulatory and cost barriers to entry;
• Facilitate the expansion of US nuclear energy capacity from approximately 100 GWe in 2024 to 400 GWe by 2050;
• Employ emerging technologies to accelerate the modelling, simulation, testing, and approval of new reactor designs;
• Support the continued operation of, and facilitate appropriate operational extensions for, the current nuclear fleet, as well as the reactivation of prematurely shuttered or partially completed nuclear facilities; and
• Maintain the US’s leading reputation for nuclear safety.

The current structure and staffing of the NRC “are misaligned with the Congress’s directive that the NRC shall not unduly restrict the benefits of nuclear power”. In consultation with the NRC’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Team NRC will be reorganised “to promote the expeditious processing of license applications and the adoption of innovative technology”. This will involve staff reductions “though certain functions may increase in size consistent with the policies in this order, including those devoted to new reactor licensing”. NRC will also create a dedicated team of at least 20 officials to draft the new regulations. NRC must issue final rules and guidance to conclude this revision process within 18 months.

The personnel and functions of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will be reduced to the minimum necessary to fulfil its statutory obligations.

NRC must:

• “Establish fixed deadlines for its evaluation and approval of licences, licence amendments, licence renewals, certificates of compliance, power uprates, licence transfers, and any other activity requested by a licensee or potential licensee… rather than the nonbinding ‘generic milestone schedules’ guidelines …already adopted. Those deadlines will be enforced by fixed caps on the NRC’s recovery of hourly fees. They include a deadline of 18 months for final decision on an application to construct and operate a new reactor of any type; a deadline of a year for final decision on an application to continue operating an existing reactor of any type. These are maximum time periods.
• Reconsider reliance on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation exposure and the “as low as reasonably achievable” standard. “Those models are flawed.” In reconsidering those limits, NRC will consider adopting determinate radiation limits in consultation with DOD, DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Establish an expedited pathway to approve reactor designs that the DOD or the DOE have tested and that have demonstrated the ability to function safely. NRC review of such designs will focus solely on risks that may arise from new applications permitted by NRC licensure, rather than revisiting risks already addressed.
• Establish a process for high-volume licensing of microreactors and modular reactors, including by allowing for standardised applications and approvals and by considering to what extent such reactors or components should be regulated through general licences.
• Establish stringent thresholds for circumstances in which the NRC may demand changes to reactor design once construction is underway.
• Revise the Reactor Oversight Process and reactor security rules and requirements to reduce unnecessary burdens and be responsive to credible risks.
• Adopt revised and, where feasible, determinate and data-backed thresholds to ensure that reactor safety assessments focus on credible, realistic risks.
• Reconsider regulations governing the time period for which a renewed licence remains effective, and extend that period as appropriate based on available technological and safety data.
• Streamline the public hearings process.

Reactor testing

The seven-section EO on reactor testing notes that the US once led civilian nuclear power development through the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Reactor Testing Station (now the Idaho National Laboratory – INL), and other government entities. “This work produced safe and abundant energy. But in the decades since, commercial deployment of new nuclear technologies has all but stopped…. Our proud history of innovation has succumbed to overregulated complacency.”

The aim of the EO is “to foster nuclear innovation and bring advanced nuclear technologies into domestic production as soon as possible”. With some exceptions, no advanced reactors have yet been deployed in America. The design, construction, operation, and disposition of such reactors under DOE are for research purposes, rather than “for the purpose of demonstrating the suitability for commercial application”.  

In order to reform the process for reactor testing:

• Within 60 days, DOE must issue guidance regarding what counts as a qualified test reactor for purposes of this order.
• Within 90 days, appropriate action must be taken to revise the regulations, guidance, and procedures and practices of DOE, the National Laboratories, and any other relevant bodies “to significantly expedite the review, approval, and deployment of advanced reactors under the DOE’s jurisdiction. DOE’s expedited procedures must enable qualified test reactors to be safely operational at DOE facilities within two years following the submission of a substantially complete application.
• Once an applicant has submitted a substantially complete application for a qualified test reactor, a team must be established comprising representatives from DOE, the relevant National Laboratory “and any other entities that possess the authority to deconflict, oppose, or approve the application”. The team will assist the applicant to ensure rapid processing of its application.
• DOE must prioritise qualified test reactor projects for processing.

A Pilot Programme will be established under DOE control outside the National Laboratories. The Energy Secretary will approve at least three reactors for this programme with the goal of achieving  criticality of each by 4 July 2026. The Secretary will assign a team to provide assistance to the applicant.

DOE, in consultation with the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, must take action to reform the Department’s rules governing compliance with NEPA no later than 30 June 2025.

The Energy Secretary must “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite the Department’s environmental reviews for authorisations, permits, approvals, leases, and any other activity requested by an applicant or potential applicant”. Such measures include determining which DOE functions are not subject to NEPA, “creating categorical exclusions as appropriate for reactors within certain parameters (or relying on existing categorical exclusions), relying on supplemental analyses where reactors will be located on existing sites, or utilising alternative procedures under NEPA”.

The nuclear industrial base

The five-section EO on Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base says the US faces “a new set of challenges, including a global race to dominate in artificial intelligence, a growing need for energy independence, and access to uninterruptible power supplies for national security”.

As US deployment of advanced reactor designs has waned, 87% of nuclear reactors installed worldwide since 2017 are based on designs from two foreign countries. At the same time, the nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure has “severely atrophied”, leaving the US heavily dependent on foreign sources of uranium, enrichment and conversion services.

“Swift and decisive action is required to jumpstart America’s nuclear energy industrial base and ensure our national and economic security by increasing fuel availability and production, securing civil nuclear supply chains, improving the efficiency with which advanced nuclear reactors are licensed, and preparing our workforce to establish America’s energy dominance and accelerate our path towards a more secure and independent energy future.”

Within 240 days, the Secretary of Energy, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), must submit a report that includes:

• a recommended national policy to support the management of used nuclear fuel and high-level waste and the development and deployment of advanced fuel cycle capabilities to establish a safe, secure, and sustainable long-term fuel cycle;
•  a review of relevant statutory authorities to identify any legislative changes necessary;
• an evaluation of the reprocessing and recycling of used fuel from the operation of DOD and DOE reactors and other used fuel managed by DOE along with a discussion of steps being taken to improve such processes;
• an analysis of legal, budgetary, and policy considerations relevant to efficiently transferring used fuel from reactors to a government-owned, privately operated reprocessing and recycling facility;
• recommendations for the efficient use of the uranium, plutonium, and other products recovered through recycling and reprocessing;
• recommendations for the efficient permanent disposal of the wastes generated by recycling or reprocessing;
• a recommended process for evaluating, prior to disposal, nuclear waste materials for isotopes of value;
• a re-evaluation of historic and current nuclear reprocessing, separation, and storage facilities slated for decommissioning that have valuable materials, isotopes, equipment, licences, operations, or experienced workers, and that may have potential fuel cycle or national security benefits if operations are continued or increased; and
• a programme to develop methods and technologies to transport, domestically and overseas, used and unused advanced nuclear fuels and advanced nuclear reactors containing such fuels in a safe, secure, and environmentally sound manner, including any required legislation.

Within 120 days, the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Chair of the NRC and the Director of OMB must develop a plan to expand domestic uranium conversion capacity and enrichment capabilities sufficient to meet projected civilian and defence reactor needs for low enriched uranium (LEU), high enriched uranium (HEU) and high assay, low enriched uranium (HALEU), subject to retention of such stockpiles as are necessary for tritium production, naval propulsion, and nuclear weapons.

The Energy Secretary of must halt the surplus plutonium dilute and dispose programme and establish instead a programme to dispose of surplus plutonium by processing and making it available to industry in a form that can be utilised for fabrication of fuel for advanced nuclear technologies.

Within 90 days, DOE’s excess uranium management policy must be updated factoring in the need to modernise the US nuclear weapon stockpile. The Energy Secretary must prioritise contracting for the development of fuel fabrication facilities that demonstrate the technical and financial feasibility to supply fuel to qualified test reactors or pilot programme reactors within three years from the date of such applications.

Within 30 days, the Energy Secretary, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission must seek voluntary agreements with domestic nuclear energy companies, prioritising agreements with companies that have achieved objective milestones, for the cooperative procurement of LEU and HALEU, including for tritium production, naval propulsion, and nuclear weapons.

Such voluntary agreements must allow consultation with domestic nuclear energy companies to discuss and implement methods to enhance the capability to manage used fuel, including recycling and reprocessing, to ensure the continued reliable operation of US nuclear reactors. The Energy Secretary is authorised to provide procurement support, forward contracts, or guarantees to ensure offtake for newly established domestic fuel supply, including conversion, enrichment, reprocessing, or fabrication capacity.

To maximise the speed and scale of new nuclear capacity, DOE must prioritise work to facilitate 5 GWe of power uprates to existing nuclear reactors and have 10 new large reactors with complete designs under construction by 2030. To help achieve these objectives, the Secretary of Energy, must prioritise activities that support nuclear energy, including actions to make available resources for restarting closed NPPs, increasing power output of operating NPPs, completing construction of reactors that was prematurely suspended, constructing new advanced nuclear reactors, and improving all associated aspects of the nuclear fuel supply chain.

The Energy Secretary is to assess the feasibility of restarting or repurposing closed NPPs as energy hubs for military microgrid support focusing initially on installations with insufficient power resilience or grid fragility.

Within 180 days, the Energy Secretary, in coordination with the Small Business Administration, subject to the availability of appropriations, must prioritise funding for qualified advanced nuclear technologies through grants, loans, investment capital, funding opportunities, and other Federal support. Priority will be given to companies demonstrating the most design and technological maturity, financial backing, and potential for near-term deployment.

Within 120 days, the Secretary of Labour and the Secretary of Education must seek to increase participation in nuclear energy-related Registered Apprenticeships and Career and Technical Education programmes by: using apprenticeship intermediary contracts and allocating existing discretionary funds; encouraging States and grantees to use funding to develop nuclear engineering and other nuclear energy-related skills; and establishing nuclear engineering and other nuclear energy-related skills training and work-based learning as a priority in discretionary grant programmes.

Within 120 days, all executive departments and agencies that provide educational grants are to consider nuclear engineering and other nuclear energy-related careers as a priority area for investment. The Energy Secretary must take steps to increase access to research and development infrastructure, workforce, and expertise at National Laboratories for college and university students studying nuclear engineering.

Comments and concerns

White House Office of Science and Technology Director Michael Kratsios, commenting on the EOs, noted: “We are restoring a strong American nuclear industrial base, rebuilding a secure and sovereign domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, and leading the world towards a future fuelled by American nuclear energy.” Speaking to reporters after signing the EOs, Trump said: It’s time for nuclear and we’re going to do it big!”

However, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned that the orders will result in “all but nullifying” NRC’s regulatory process. “This push by the Trump administration to usurp much of the agency’s autonomy as they seek to fast-track the construction of nuclear plants will weaken critical, independent oversight of the US nuclear industry and poses significant safety and security risks to the public.”

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the UCS, said: “By fatally compromising the independence and integrity of the NRC, and by encouraging pathways for nuclear deployment that bypass the regulator entirely, the Trump administration is virtually guaranteeing that this country will see a serious accident or other radiological release that will affect the health, safety, and livelihoods of millions.”