The Trump administration is looking to speed up new nuclear power projects with a trio of executive orders intended to reduce the regulatory overhead required to get approval for new reactor licenses.
Trump, who said nuclear power had become “a hot industry” and “very safe and environmental” just before he signed the orders in the Oval Office, did so flanked by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the latter of whom said the signing marked “a huge day for the nuclear industry.”
“Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of overregulation of an industry,” he said. “America has always American greatness has always come from innovation. And we were very innovative. We led post World War II and all things nuclear. But then we've been stagnated. We've choked it with overregulation.”
Hegseth the orders were “a big game changer” because they would enable the Pentagon to move forward with plans to increase use of artificial intelligence by increasing the power available for AI data centers.
“We're including artificial intelligence in everything we do. If we don't, we're not fast enough, we're not keeping up with adversaries. You need the energy to fuel it. Nuclear is a huge part of that, modular or otherwise. So we're going to have the lights on and AI operating when others do not faster than everybody else because of nuclear capability,” Hegseth said.
Asked to respond to concerns that nuclear power is not safe, Trump replied: “It's become very safe. And tremendous work's been done on that, more than anything else, and it's really the automatic shut offs.”
“But they have tremendous shut off power and other powers that and very redundant, as I understand, at a level that nobody's ever seen before. So it's safe, and we're going to do a lot of the small ones, and we're going to do some of the big ones. But yeah, very safe, safe and clean,” he added.
According to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the plans, the executive orders will speed up reactor licensing and testing procedures at the Department of Energy by reforming the research and development process, remove roadblocks to building new reactors on federal land, and reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent agency charged with overseeing America’s nuclear industry.
Once hailed as the future of American energy in the post-Second World War era but reviled as dangerous after the Three Mile Island accident in the late 1970s, nuclear power has declined as a share of all electricity generation in the U.S. in recent years. But the need for more and more power to run data centers needed for artificial intelligence has led nuclear energy to get a second look.
Constellation Energy plans to reopen the infamous Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania as part of an agreement with Microsoft, while Oracle has announced plans to harness small modular nuclear reactors to power a growing number of data centers. Both Google and Amazon have expressed interest in small reactor technology for their data power needs as well.
Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said Trump’s latest executive actions would “ensure continued American strength and global leadership in science and technology.”
Kratsios noted that the U.S. had once “led the world in nuclear innovation” but has faltered in the last 30 years, with only two new reactors being commissioned compared with the 100 that were built between the 1950s and the 1990s.
“We decommissioned commercial reactors across the country, stepped back from nuclear R and D and abandoned hopes of nuclear energy, power and a bright future. America's great innovators and entrepreneurs have run into brick walls when it comes to nuclear technologies,” he said.
Kratsios added that Trump is “taking historic action to ensure America's energy dominance and provide affordable, reliable, safe and secure energy to the American people” and “telling the world that America will build again and the American nuclear renaissance can begin.”
The first order Trump signed will order the acceleration of nuclear research and other testing at DOE laboratories by expeding applications and review processes while enabling what the official called “a pilot program for construction” over the next two years.
Another order “clears the regulatory path of the DOE and the Department of Defense to build nuclear reactors on federally owned land,” with the official noting that doing so would provide for “safe and reliable nuclear energy to power and operate critical defense facilities and AI data centers.”
In practice, the official said the reactors built on federal land would be outside the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and would instead be licensed and managed by the Pentagon and Department of Energy.
The commission itself would be targeted by the third Trump order, which calls for “a total and complete reform of NRC culture to reorient to ensure reactor safety and promoting the development and adoption of nuclear technology.”
It would also require the commission to make decisions on applications for new reactor licenses within 18 months.
A fourth nuclear-related order is meant for “reinvigorating” America’s “nuclear industrial base” by jump-starting the uranium mining industry and promoting domestic uranium enrichment.
A White House official said the order would be tasking Energy Secretary Scott Wright with evaluating “existing policies regarding a range of recycling and reprocessing topics” and recommending how to “get the most value out of our nuclear materials supply.”
He also stressed that “nonproliferation concerns and other safety security considerations will be factored into those evaluations of those policies and any recommendations that come out of that process.”
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