Can Trump Expedite a Nuclear Renaissance?
The Executive Orders Show Promise, But Are Just the Beginning
By Adam Stein, Joy Jiang, Spencer Toohill, and Deric Tilson
Last week, President Trump signed four executive orders aimed at moving the United States’ nuclear industry forward. The executive orders (EOs) push for more efficient licensing at the NRC, building a resilient domestic supply chain, and advancing the deployment of nuclear energy in the US. Many of the directives align with the bipartisan policies set forth in the ADVANCE Act of 2024, and are already in process at the NRC. Not all of the provisions are feasible, and some are even contradictory, but others are informative and helpful because they reduce policy uncertainty by stating the administration’s support for many of the changes already underway. Overall, the EOs represent a real commitment to support a large scale-up of nuclear energy.
In many cases, the executive orders say the quiet part out loud. Nuclear power is the largest source of firm, clean energy in the United States, and further growth of the industry will reduce overall electricity system costs. Regulation should not be one-sided and must consider benefits to society in balance with the risks and impacts of other energy sources. Nuclear energy helps to avoid thousands of pollution-related deaths a year in the United States, and millions more worldwide.
The administration’s stated goal of 400 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050 is laudable and supports national security, but achieving that goal will require comprehensive and complementary strategies and ample resources. A series of executive orders is just a start. The administration must look not only to support the nuclear technologies but also provide an environment that enables the efficient deployment of nuclear energy.
The executive order entitled Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base supports an American nuclear ecosystem by enabling a domestic fuel supply chain, expanding workforce development programs, and prioritizing funding for nuclear plant uprates and restarts, among other steps.
The EO also calls for increased support for nuclear deployment through the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Both agencies can provide real benefits to the nuclear industry, but it is unclear that licensing under DOE would be any easier than licensing a large reactor under the NRC. Similarly, the Department of Defense has no recent experience in deploying nuclear reactors and technology. Additionally, the EOs’ call to restart shutter to promote 5 GW of uprates, and build 10 new large reactors by leveraging the DOE’s Loan Programs Office. But the Loan Programs Office must be properly staffed and empowered to realize these goals.
The executive order, Ordering the reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and fact sheet, President Donald J. Trump Directs Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, directly call on the NRC to reform its overly risk-averse culture, structure, and regulations, setting an 18-month limit for licensing new reactors, 12-month limit for license renewals for existing reactors, and implement many of the provisions in the bipartisan ADVANCE Act of 2024.
These EOs will push the NRC to become more efficient in its licensing, but it also threatens to reduce the NRC’s workforce, independence, and resources. To enable high-volume licensing to meet the administration’s goal of 400 GW of new nuclear plants by 2050, the NRC will need at least 350 staff members whose full-time focus will be on licensing—even if licensing becomes twice as efficient as it is now. The order correctly identifies that increases in staffing in certain areas, particularly licensing, may be necessary.
But, a broad reorganization of the NRC could cause significant attrition of the highest-performing staff, further reducing the efficiency of the agency. A wholesale review and revision of the regulations within 9 months would significantly divert resources from existing projects, and finalizing new regulations in 18 months would likely be too rushed to design a well-thought-out regulatory paradigm that will last a generation. (It has taken 6 years to get this far with Part 53. If the first version was finalized, it would be useless now.) Implementation of this directive will take careful consideration and strategy to avoid unintended consequences and actually improve the regulatory paradigm to achieve the NRC’s mission.
It also asks the NRC to reconsider, not outright eliminate, the linear-no-threshold radiation exposure model and As-Low-As-Reasonably-Achievable (ALARA) regulation. This is consistent with Congressional expectations for the NRC, stated in the ADVANCE Act, to not unnecessarily limit benefits to society while ensuring safety. However, it is a missed opportunity to finally align the NRC with a modern, risk-informed approach that directly reflects Congress’s 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that emphasize an “ample margin of safety” as a numerical threshold that is consistent for radiological health risk and other regulated hazards. Reconsideration of safety and risk thresholds must consider what is in statute.
The executive order titled Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy advocates for speeding up the development of advanced nuclear through pilot programs and streamlining environmental reviews. The order specifically asserts that advanced reactors that are not used for commercial electricity generation are collectively for “research purposes” and can be licensed by DOE. The DOE is required to set up a licensing and permitting process to approve these “qualified test reactor” applications within 2 years of submission and is charged with demonstrating at least three reactors by mid-2026.
Finally, the executive order titled Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security acknowledges the important role that nuclear energy plays in national security. It designates electricity generation facilities that power national security AI facilities as defense-critical infrastructure. The EO also directs the DOE to site advanced reactors and make fuel available for the purposes of powering AI and other national security infrastructure. According to the EO, the first of these advanced reactors should be operational in 30 months.
Overall, the executive orders take important steps to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy in the United States, and look to implement many of the steps first established by the bipartisan ADVANCE Act to modernize the NRC and align regulations with the agency’s recently updated mission. However, a comprehensive strategy is still needed to bring the parts together. The clear negative health and environmental effects and risks of other energy sources should no longer be ignored when considering innovation, licensing, and deployment of nuclear energy.
However, despite the usual caveat that orders “shall be implemented consistent with applicable law,” some provisions are in untested legal areas and are clearly intended to push the boundaries. This increases uncertainty in which provisions can be implemented, and what the final outcome will be.
There are several issues that these executive orders don’t address that are left to the market or Congress. Developers need to fill order books to get to scale instead of one-off projects. Buyers consortia are needed to share risk across multiple projects and build a supply chain, workforce, and fuel supply base. Congress needs to provide some support to achieve provisions in the executive orders, such as a general license class for high-volume licensing of commercial reactors, focusing the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) on new and novel issues. Congress can also restore market confidence by preserving LPO, the investment tax credit, allowing reasonable FEOC, and policies that focus on addressing the underlying drivers of past project overruns.
In the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 Congress declared that “the development, use, and control of atomic energy shall be directed so as to make the maximum contribution to the general welfare.” The nation needs a nuclear regulator that can license new nuclear reactors, and a federal government capable of enabling the industry to grow and maximize benefits to society—a position Congress reaffirmed in the bipartisan ADVANCE Act last year. These executive orders are a positive sign that the Trump administration understands both the value of nuclear power and the important role that the federal government must play in its resurgence, but are not sufficient to reach that goal in isolation.