Will Trump's Regulatory Reforms Do Enough To Unleash Nuclear Energy?
The good parts of his executive order could easily get mired in the swamp.
On Friday, President Donald Trump issued four executive orders aimed at bolstering nuclear power production by addressing supply chain constraints, reforming advanced reactor testing at federal research facilities, and increasing nuclear reactor use on military bases.
One of the most substantive orders calls for a "wholesale revision" of regulations governing nuclear power. Specifically, it directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to establish guidelines that would issue final decisions on all new construction and operation applications within 18 months—a process that currently takes years.
Under the order, the NRC will work with the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to draft these rules, which are due next year. Under an executive order issued in February, executive and independent agencies are required to submit draft and final rules to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (an office within the OMB) for review and approval.
This added layer of federal scrutiny could end up slowing down reactor approvals and make the NRC less efficient. It could also run contrary to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which established the NRC and its guidelines.
"The NRC is designed to be an independent agency," Adam Stein, director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Program at the Breakthrough Institute, tells Reason. "The President has control by appointing Commissioners and has the authority to remove Commissioners for cause." However, the Atomic Energy Act says that the commission shall execute the provisions of the law, "not the Commissioners in conjunction with other parts of the Executive branch," he says.
Congress has also begun to address permitting delays at the NRC. In 2024, federal lawmakers passed the ADVANCE Act which, among other things, directs the NRC to establish a quicker permitting process for already-approved technologies (18 months to finish safety evaluations and environmental reviews and 25 months to issue a final decision). The agency is expected to issue these guidelines by September, according to the NRC website.
However, the legislation stipulates that these guidelines be enforced to "the maximum extent possible." Jack Spencer, a senior energy researcher at The Heritage Foundation, thinks Trump's order could "bring additional accountability to the process."
"Any big bureaucracy is going to be resistant to change," he says. "Legislation that basically puts it in their hands to achieve that reform, I think, will often fall short of the sorts of reform that are possible." Spencer thinks that subjecting the proposed reforms to another set of eyes "that will ask hard questions will be helpful in ensuring that real reform ultimately takes hold."
This executive order also directs the NRC to reconsider its radiation standards for nuclear power plants and "adopt science-based radiation limits."
Federal radiation regulations mandate nuclear power plants to emit levels of radiation that are "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) and are based on the linear no-threshold model, which assumes that no level of radiation risk is safe to the public. This framework is not scientific (humans are exposed to natural levels of radiation that are higher than those that nuclear power plants emit) and has pushed up costs for power plant operators for no public safety benefit.
Spencer argues that fixing this rule is critical for reducing the nuclear industry's regulatory burden. "You can make the NRC the most efficient regulatory agency that has ever existed. And if the basis of its regulatory actions is not grounded in science, then who cares?"
"That doesn't mean that you're reducing safety standards. It means that you're making safety standards in line with actual risks," he adds.
This directive could face legal scrutiny.
Stein, who has been critical of these standards, says "safety standards are almost never implemented through executive order. They usually require the agency to review and 'reconsider' if the standards are appropriate." With the NRC recently reaffirming its model for radiation standards in 2021, there "would need to be new scientific evidence to justify a change now that wouldn't be viewed as arbitrary by a court." Instead of rewriting ALARA standards, Stein suggests that the NRC could adopt radiation thresholds at nuclear power facilities that are defined in the Clean Air Act.
Spencer recognizes these standards can't be changed through an executive order. "But it gets the conversation going. And it makes it more OK to talk about it, and it subjects the whole issue to daylight and makes people address it."
Trump's order also sets a goal to effectively quadruple America's nuclear energy capacity and build 400 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050. Stein says this goal "can be a helpful signal to the market," but stating a goal does not "will it into existence."
Juliann Edwards, chief development officer at The Nuclear Company, a startup aiming to streamline the deployment of nuclear power plants, agrees. "It's obtainable if you have the right leadership and you have the right behaviors and you're removing a lot of bureaucratic, unnecessary red tape, whether that be the federal level or the state level or through some regulatory regime."
America's fleet of commercial nuclear power plants, while still safe and effective, is aging. Most of the reactors were built between 1967 and 1990—although two came online in 2023 and 2024, seven years delayed and $16 billion over budget.
As the U.S. halted its construction, China's has accelerated. From 2014 to April 2024, the nation has added over 34 gigawatts of nuclear capacity to its grid. "Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less," notes the Breakthrough Institute. China currently has 30 nuclear reactors under construction and is exporting its nuclear energy technology to developing nations. Nearly half of the world's nuclear power plant constructions are happening in China.
While several factors have played into America's pivot away from nuclear power, including market structures, state bans on the energy source, and the introduction of cheap natural gas, the impact of federal regulations cannot be overstated.
"Without doing a refresh and making sure [that] regulations are still applicable, you can get into a point, which we're seeing now, where it's extremely difficult to even cite and permit a piece of land," says Edwards. In the past 20 years, regulations have become so onerous that it takes five to seven years and close to $1 billion just to permit and cite a plot of land for nuclear energy development, according to Edwards. Streamlining the licensing process isn't a safety hazard but rather "a natural iteration that should be a part of our standard process with regulations."
Regulations have long inhibited American nuclear energy. While Trump's order is well-intentioned to fix this issue, it is sure to face legal challenges—as many of the president's orders have.
Still, the orders may be enough to get a more substantial conversation going. "I think anything that creates pressure toward reform is good," says Spencer.
