By Avi Salzman

The nuclear energy industry got a big boost last Friday when President Donald Trump signed executive orders aiming to speed up construction of reactors. But details of those executive orders are now raising alarms among nuclear experts, who worry they erode protections that keep Americans safe.

In particular, Trump wants to loosen rules on how much radiation can be emitted from nuclear plants, direct the DOGE team to help test new kinds of reactors, and change standards for approving new reactors. Trump issued those directives in a series of four executive orders released late on Friday.

The orders are designed to ramp up the construction of new reactors at a time when none are being built in the United States.

But Trump's methods go well beyond past efforts to jump-start the nuclear energy industry. Some nuclear experts say they jeopardize the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the safety of the U.S. nuclear fleet. The NRC was created by Congress and sits in the executive branch, where it's expected to make decisions independent of political pressure.

Kathryn Huff, who led the Department of Energy's nuclear office under President Biden, said in an interview that the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters were caused in part by a lack of independent regulators. Huff, who is now a professor at the University of Illinois, thinks Trump's executive orders -- including these four and a previous one from February -- look like an attempt to turn the NRC into an agent of the White House. The orders "indicate a desire to fully capture the regulator, which is a path to nuclear accidents," she said.

Some groups are raising similar concerns.

The 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," said Dr. Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement.

Jennifer Gordon, a nuclear policy expert at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, wrote that the changes to the NRC could "lessen its standing among global nuclear regulatory authorities."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the criticisms.

Much of the language in Trump's executive orders aligns with bipartisan views on nuclear energy that President Joe Biden also embraced. That includes a goal of approving reactors more quickly and helping fund them with government money. Investors had a positive reaction to Trump's orders, lifting the stocks of companies like Constellation Energy that own reactors, and Oklo that are building new kinds of reactors. Nuclear companies have "increased political clout," wrote Jefferies analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith.

But some parts of the executive orders could significantly change how the U.S. regulates nuclear plants.

In one of his executive orders, Trump says that the NRC uses outdated methods to determine how much radiation is safe for Americans. "This failure stems from a fundamental error: Instead of efficiently promoting safe, abundant nuclear energy, the NRC has instead tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion," he writes.

In response, the NRC said it "is assessing the executive orders and will comply with White House directives."

Trump argues that it's time to change the standards of what's considered an acceptable level of radiation for the public to be exposed to. The current standards are based on a technical term known as the linear no-threshold, or LNT, model, and the NRC's principle to keep radiation "as low as reasonably achievable."

Huff says that the standards are meant to be conservative, but not totally eliminate all radiation risk. "The idea is that you should try to minimize radiation exposure to the public reasonably," she said. Trump isn't the first person who has said the standards should be changed, but Huff thinks that any changes should follow a rigorous scientific process addressing the possible public harms.

Trump also wants to cut jobs at the NRC and rewrite its rules, with the guidance of DOGE -- the Department of Government Efficiency that was developed by Elon Musk. DOGE was previously criticized for mass firings at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which works on nuclear weapons programs. Many of those firings were eventually reversed amid criticism that they put the country at risk, with officials scrambling to rehire people who had been let go.

Some experts questioned whether DOGE should have a role in changing rules for nuclear reactors and cutting jobs at the nuclear safety agency.

"Having DOGE involved in this is a little odd," Huff said. "I suppose it makes sense with regard to reduction in force, but I'm not aware of any nuclear expertise on the DOGE team."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on DOGE's nuclear expertise.

It's also not clear how layoffs at the NRC will help speed the process of getting reactors approved. "Reduction in force and acceleration of licensing timelines -- those don't go together," Huff said. "You have to increase the number of people if you're going to reduce the time it takes to license something."

So far the NRC has not had the kind of mass layoffs that have happened at other federal agencies. There were 2,849 people working there as of April 1, down from 2,857 on Jan. 1. Since Trump's inauguration, 37 people have quit the agency and 111 have taken a deferred resignation. One of Trump's executive orders says the cost-cutting at the NRC will be flexible -- the commission may even get more employees in certain areas, like reactor testing, if necessary.

DOGE will also be involved in another part of Trump's nuclear plan -- testing new kinds of reactors on federal property. That sort of thing is already happening at places like the Idaho National Laboratory, a federal lab that has worked with nuclear companies on test reactors. But Trump is looking to ramp up those tests and get three pilot reactors up and running by July 4, 2026. Trump wants the results of the tests to determine how the NRC reviews applications for new kinds of reactors that serve the public.

The president also wants to put reactors on military bases, and look for ways to exempt them from traditional environmental reviews that can slow construction down. Chris Gadomski, the lead nuclear analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said that using military bases makes sense, because it will reduce the need for nuclear companies to pay for security, which can be a large expense.

But Gadomski thinks these efforts won't lead to the construction of new reactors without more specific financial commitments from the utilities that would own them. In 2005, a similar policy effort by President George W. Bush led companies to plan for 25 new reactors, only two of which got built, and those two went billions of dollars over budget, Gadomski noted. "You can have all this policy push" for nuclear reactors, he said. "But you need to have the market pull too. You need to have utility executives say 'Yeah. I'll take one of those.'"

Trump's executive orders say that the Department of Energy should help finance new reactors through its Loan Programs Office, which had already been financing them under the previous administration. The problem is that the office is expected to lose much of its staff due to job cuts, and Republicans in the House of Representatives are looking to cut its funds to pay for tax cuts. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said at a recent budget hearing that he hopes the Senate will keep funding for the Loan Programs Office.

"If you are a U.S. utility and you don't have support from the Loan Programs Office to build a nuclear power plant, what other financial institutions are going to step in to fill that void?" asked Gadomski.

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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May 29, 2025 02:45 ET (06:45 GMT)

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