Trump's NRC Executive Order

Trump's Executive Order on the NRC has been issued. Is it possible to be both unsurprised and disappointed? The EO is basically a requirement that the NRC "reconsider" its behavior. "consider" in various forms shows up seven times in a 1600 word document. That's a lot of considering.

Most of the Order is so unspecific as to be meaningless. But there are a few places where it gets semi-specific. Here are some extracts in the order they appear in the text.

The EO starts out on a weak note, while falling into the threshold trap.

The 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.

Here's what Trump should have said.

The NRC's regulatory philosophy is based on a 90 year old radiation harm model called LNT. LNT is biological nonsense. It denies our remarkable ability to repair radiation damage to our DNA. As a result, LNT over-predicts radiation harm to the public in a nuclear power plant release by many orders of magnitude. This ability is indisputable. To conform to undisputed science, LNT must be replaced.

A little later on, we find:

When carrying out its licensing and related regulatory functions, the NRC shall consider the benefits of increased availability of, and innovation in, nuclear power to our economic and national security in addition to safety, health, and environmental considerations.

This call to consider has no teeth. How about:

Any regulatory requirement or action shall be supported by a cost/benefit analysis. These analyses shall explicitly include the reduction in harm from displacing alternate sources of this power.

This next paragraph has received a lot of media attention.

The NRC, working with its DOGE Team, the Office of Management and Budget, and other executive departments and agencies as appropriate, shall undertake a review and wholesale revision of its regulations and guidance documents, and issue notice(s) of proposed rulemaking effecting this revision within 9 months of the date of this order. The NRC shall issue final rules and guidance to conclude this revision process within 18 months of the date of this order.

It sounds good; but all it really requires is the delivery of some paperwork. The NRC gets to decide what's in these revisions. Once again we are asking the NRC to judge itself. We've done that before, most recently with NEIMA and the Advance Act, with nothing to show for it. There is no reason to believe that this time the results will be different.

Here's the one paragraph in the Order that could change NRC behavior in a substantive fashion.

Establish fixed deadlines for its evaluation and approval of licenses, license amendments, license renewals, certificates of compliance, power uprates, license transfers, and any other activity requested by a licensee or potential licensee, as directed under the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, rather than the nonbinding "generic milestone schedules" guidelines the NRC has already adopted. Those deadlines shall be enforced by fixed caps on the NRC’s recovery of hourly fees. The deadlines shall include: (1) a deadline of no more than 18 months for final decision on an application to construct and operate a new reactor of any type, commencing with the first required step in the regulatory process, and (2) a deadline of no more than 1 year for final decision on an application to continue operating an existing reactor of any type, commencing with the first required step in the regulatory process. The regulations should not provide for tolling those deadlines except in instances of applicant failure, and must allow a reasonably diligent applicant to navigate the licensing process successfully in the time allotted.

Unfortunately, the last sentence extracts all the teeth from the deadline requirements. (Tolling in this context means suspending or extending.) The NRC gets to decide what is an "applicant failure". Since the event tree is a fractal bush, the NRC can always reject an applicant's analyses as incomplete, and has done so many times. It will again.

Here's the Order on LNT. All it does is ask the NRC to reconsider LNT. The NRC has been asked to reconsider LNT at least three times, most recently in the 2019 Marcus petition. The NRC pondered the issue for three years before proclaiming to no one's surprise that it was sticking with LNT.

Adopt science-based radiation limits. In particular, the NRC shall reconsider reliance on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation exposure and the “as low as reasonably achievable” standard, which is predicated on LNT. Those models are flawed, as discussed in section 1 of this order. In reconsidering those limits, the NRC shall specifically consider adopting determinate radiation limits, and in doing so shall consult with the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency.

This is the most disappointing paragraph of all. Both LNT and ALARA were adopted administratively by the AEC/NRC. They were not mandated by Congress. Here's what Trump should have said:

The linear no-threshold (LNT) model of radiation harm shall no longer be used by any Federal agency in estimating cancer incidence from radiation exposure. It shall immediately be replaced by the sigmoid no threshold (SNT) model. The NRC and the EPA shall recompute all radiation exposure limits using SNT rather than LNT, and promulgate the results within 90 days. All cost/benefit analyses involving potential radiation exposure shall use SNT as their radiation harm model.

No Federal Agency shall use the ALARA standard in evaluating a design.

The Trump team should have realized that you can’t replace LNT unless you have a well defined replacement model. If they did not have such a model, they should have waited until they had one.

NEPA is one area where Trump should be able to make some progress, mainly because the wind/solar proponents have recognized that it can be used against their pet projects.

Revise, in consultation with the Council on Environmental Quality, NRC regulations governing NRC’s compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act to reflect the Congress’s 2023 amendments to that statute and the policies articulated in sections 2 and 5 of Executive Order 14154 of January 20, 2025 (Unleashing American Energy).

This is OK as far as it goes, but Trump could have ordered the NRC not to consider non-radiation hazards in its licensing, and force the courts to reconsider the Calvert Cliffs decision. There's a good chance that this Supreme Court would overturn that legally dubious ruling.

And here's the obligatory nod to SMR's.

Establish a process for high-volume licensing of microreactors and modular reactors, including by allowing for standardized applications and approvals and by considering to what extent such reactors or components thereof should be regulated through general licenses.

Missed opportunity to make clear that once a design has been certified, then NRC's only role in individual plant siting is to check that the site's design earthquake is less than the certified earthquake. For shoreline plants, the NRC also checks that the siting complies with the design tsunami. That's it. But instead we get yet another consider requirement.

The gratuitous restriction to small reactors should have been stricken. I expected better from a guy who likes things big and beautiful.

Under current NRC rules, each US nuclear plant is protected by 100 or more ex-special ops guys. This is extremely inefficient, and does nothing to prevent the real threat: aircraft (including drones) and missile attacks. The EO says only:

Revise the Reactor Oversight Process and reactor security rules and requirements to reduce unnecessary burdens and be responsive to credible risks.

Missed opportunity to clearly state that protecting a plant from terrorist attack is a Federal and police responsibility, not the plant's. The Order should have said:

The NRC shall impose no requirements for anything other than normal industrial security.

The sad truth is Trump can't change the incentives that will dictate the NRC's behavior. Whatever all the preambles and declaration of purposes, etc say the NRC will continue to be judged on its ability to prevent a release. And as long as we give such a bureaucracy the final say, it will be the bureaucrats' incentives that rule, not society's. But Trump could have outlawed LNT. And he could have forced ALARA underground.

As it is, this Executive Order will change nothing. The nuclear establishment knows this. The misnamed Nuclear Innovation Alliance(NIA) immediately issued a statement on the EO which spends most of its time complaining about DOGE cuts to the DOE pork barrel. Does this sound like an industry that expects any real changes at the NRC?

We welcome the Administration’s efforts to boost development and deployment of nuclear power. Leveraging Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Energy (DOE) authorities and capacity are important means to those ends. The DoD is particularly well positioned to move ahead on new reactors, and we look forward to their continued progress.  The DOE is well positioned to leverage their sites to build new reactors, strengthen the nuclear fuel supply chain, and explore new opportunities for fuel recycling.  However, adequate staffing and funding are required for these goals to be met. Recent DOE staffing reductions and proposed budget cuts undermine the Department’s efforts and make it harder to implement these executive orders. We urge the Administration and Congress to adequately resource and staff DOE to meet this moment.

NIA has long thought it is important that NRC improve the efficiency of its activities (see this NIA two-pager summarizing our analysis and views: Urgency of NRC Reform).  The NRC must modernize to ensure effective, efficient, and predictable licensing of new nuclear reactors. However, some of the provisions in the EOs would actually undermine the Administration's goals. Our assessment is that NRC is already making significant progress on reform in compliance with congressional direction including the 2024 ADVANCE Act.  It is in everyone's interest that this progress continue and not be undermined by staffing cuts or upended by conflicting directives. NRC effectiveness, efficiency and independence are critical to the public, the industry, and potential customers of U.S. nuclear technology both here and abroad.[NIA, 2025-05-23]

Business as usual, and the business is extracting money from the taxpayer.