WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The US nuclear power regulator finalized a rule on Thursday allowing companies to use data from demonstration projects at US agencies, calling it the first major change to reactor regulations since President Donald Trump ordered faster agency reviews.
• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule will now allow companies to use analyses, data and information from reactor demonstration projects at the US energy and defense departments to support an expected wave of applications to the NRC of high-tech reactor projects, including small modular reactors.
• Trump’s orders in May 2025 directed the NRC to finish approvals for new reactor designs within 18 months, igniting criticism that his administration was reducing the NRC’s independence. Nuclear plants are powered by radioactive fuels the NRC monitors at all stages. The agency also monitors the safety of nuclear reactors.
• NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the rule will not allow projects to get around his agency’s strict standards. “This is not a shortcut, this is not a compromise,” Nieh told reporters.
• Nieh said NRC reviews could be more stringent on “consequence analysis,” or estimations of potential offsite radiological, health or economic impacts of severe reactor accidents, or hazards from natural events like earthquakes or tornadoes.
• Nuclear safety activist and physicist Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists said it is critical that the NRC maintain its authority to make independent safety and security determinations and not simply ape the decisions of other agencies.
• “For all their flaws, the NRC’s licensing procedures are far more rigorous and transparent” than the energy and defense department procedures, Lyman said.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by David Gaffen)
