President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders Friday focused on speeding up nuclear energy development by reducing regulations that officials said have “choked” the industry for decades.
Many nuclear rules stem from reforms to protect the public after a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979.
Friday’s orders include directives to clear the regulatory path for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to build nuclear reactors on public lands to power defense facilities and artificial intelligence data centers, speed up the review process and encourage mining for the uranium the industry needs.
One executive order also focuses on reorganizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency that serves as a watchdog for public health and safety involving nuclear energy. It directs the agency to prepare for layoffs.
“Mark this day on your calendar: This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of over-regulation on industry,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at the signing.
Nuclear energy made up about 19 percent of U.S. utility-scale energy generation as of 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration. Nuclear power reactors don’t spew greenhouse gases or other air pollutants, but they are expensive and time-consuming to build and involve processes, like waste storage and uranium mining, that have a history of environmental and health harms.
Some experts responding to the executive orders said that deregulation and weakening the NRC could do more harm than good, hindering safety and eroding public trust in nuclear projects.
Potential changes to the NRC are particularly concerning, said John Burrows, energy and climate policy director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, a group focused on public lands and environmental protection.
“The NRC is really respected as an independent agency free of industry and political influence, and to the extent that these executive orders undermine that, I think it poses [a] significant challenge for public buy-in for a lot of these projects,” Burrows said.
The executive order mandating “reform” to the agency questions the NRC’s safety models and warnings about radiation risks, and criticizes what it calls a “myopic policy of minimizing even trivial risks.” The directive also says that the temporary Department of Government Efficiency, a key part of Trump’s efforts to dismantle agencies, will consult on staffing changes.
A senior White House official said that “total reduction in staff is undetermined at this point,” but noted that the orders “call for a substantial reorganization” of the agency. The NRC order left open the possibility of increasing staff in some areas, such as nuclear reactor licensing, even as others are cut.
“The NRC is assessing the executive orders and will comply with WH directives,” NRC public affairs officer Scott Burnell wrote in an emailed statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Administration, DOE and DOD on future nuclear programs.”
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Joseph Romm, a senior research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, said that any reduction in capacity at the NRC would be ill-timed with the administration’s proposed ramp-up of nuclear projects.
“This is not the time to be weakening oversight,” said Romm, who was a senior official at the Department of Energy in the 1990s. “It’s very dangerous to be weakening and undermining and politicizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s oversight at a time when it’s not going to be having to do less work.”
Speeding up the permitting process while accepting proposals for new reactor designs would be “ridiculous and very dangerous,” he added.
The executive orders are part of the administration’s stated push toward “American energy dominance,” and officials said they hope to quadruple the country’s nuclear power production in the next 25 years.
“It’s a hot industry, it’s a brilliant industry, you have to do it right and it’s become very safe and environmental, yes, 100 percent,” Trump said at Friday’s signing.
Members of the Trump administration praised the executive orders at the event, and were joined by several nuclear energy company CEOs, including Joseph Dominguez of Constellation Energy, who said that delays in regulations and permitting can “absolutely kill” companies.
“We’re wasting too much time on permitting and we’re answering silly questions, not the important ones,” Dominguez said.
“Are we doing something about the regulatory in here?” Trump asked Dominguez of the executive orders he was about to sign.
“Oh, yes, sir,” Dominguez responded.
Nuclear energy requires large quantities of uranium, a naturally occurring radioactive element found in soil, rock and water. Mining and processing uranium produces toxic waste and has contaminated water. The Navajo Nation in particular has experienced decades of environmental destruction, death and disease linked to uranium mining for nuclear weapons and then nuclear power.
After years of decreased demand, uranium mining is cropping up again in the Southwest. Amber Reimondo, energy director at Grand Canyon Trust, said Friday’s executive orders could signal a return to the injurious practices that put many communities in harm’s way.
“All these years, the mining industry and the federal government have tried to reassure these communities that they have nothing to fear from future development, and the fact that they’re basically looking to repeat history is really astounding to me,” Reimondo said.
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Keerti Gopal covers intersections between climate change, public health and environmental justice at Inside Climate News. Previously, she covered climate activism and movement repression. She is a National Geographic Explorer and has received fellowships from Fulbright, the Solutions Journalism Network, The Lever, and the National Press Foundation.
