The Trump administration has tightened its control over the independent agency responsible for overseeing America's nuclear reactors, and it is considering an executive order that could further erode its autonomy, two U.S. officials who declined to speak publicly because they feared retribution told NPR.
Going forward, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must send new rules regarding reactor safety to the White House, where they will be reviewed and possibly edited. That is a radical departure for the watchdog agency, which historically has been among the most independent in the government. The new procedures for White House review have been in the works for months, but they were just recently finalized and are now in full effect.
NPR has also seen a draft of an executive order "ordering the reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission." The draft calls for reducing the size of the NRC's staff, conducting a "wholesale revision" of its regulations in coordination with the White House and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team, shortening the time to review reactor designs and possibly loosening the current, strict standards for radiation exposure.
"It's the end of the independence of the agency," says Allison Macfarlane, director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia in Canada who was nominated by President Obama to serve as Chair of the NRC from 2012 to 2014. Macfarlane believes the changes will make Americans less safe.
"If you aren't independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident, frankly," Macfarlane says.
The draft executive order was marked pre-decisional and deliberative. It was one of several draft orders seen by NPR that appeared to be aimed at promoting the nuclear industry. Other draft orders called for the construction of small modular nuclear reactors at military bases, and for the development of advanced nuclear fuels. Axios first reported on the existence of the executive orders.
It remains unclear which, if any, will be signed by President Trump.
In a statement, the NRC said it was working with the White House "as part of our commitment to make NRC regulatory processes more efficient. We have no additional details at this time."
"The President of the United States is the head of the executive branch," a spokesperson for the White House's Office of Management and Budget wrote to NPR in an email. "The President issued an independent agencies executive order which aligns with the president's power given to him by the constitution. This idea has been talked about for nearly 40 years and should not be a surprise."
Safety first
The NRC was established by Congress in 1974 with the explicit goal of strictly regulating nuclear reactors and protecting Americans from exposure to radiation. It stepped up enforcement after a partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
The NRC is run by five commissioners who are appointed by the president to five-year terms and confirmed by the Senate. The commission is a mix of Democrat and Republican appointees that formulate policy, develop regulations for nuclear reactors and nuclear materials, issue orders to licensees and adjudicate legal matters.
The NRC has been considered a rigorous regulator. It conducts lengthy scientific reviews of new reactor designs, and keeps resident inspectors in house at each of America's operating nuclear reactors.
At times, some say, the agency has been too hidebound. Historically, the NRC has "taken an extremely conservative view of its responsibility to safeguard public safety," says Ted Nordhaus, executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, a California think tank that advocates for the development of new nuclear power. Nordhaus testified before Congress in 2023 about reforming the NRC, and last year Congress passed a bipartisan law designed to accelerate the development of new reactor designs. Part of the law specified several reforms at the NRC.
Going nuclear
The NRC has been working to respond to the new law, but it has historically operated largely outside the purview of the White House. That began to change with an executive order signed by the president in February that called for independent agencies to begin reporting directly to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, has rejected the idea that any agency in the executive branch should be allowed to operate outside the influence of the president.
"There are no independent agencies," he told Tucker Carlson in an interview in November of last year. "The whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out."
The new directive seems in line with that view. Previously, the NRC's five commissioners would vote on draft rules and final rules for nuclear reactors. Their votes would be publicly recorded as would the reasoning for their decision. But now, the commissioners will carry out their votes in a closed session and pass the rule to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which sits within the Office of Management and Budget. The White House will have up to 90 days to review the proposed and final rules, and make changes, before handing them back to the NRC.
Only after the rule is finalized will the commissioners' votes be made public. It was not immediately clear how the public would know whether the White House had changed a safety rule for a nuclear reactor.
Some questioned what the White House could gain from reviewing abstruse rules for nuclear safety.
"Who has the technical knowledge to actually do a substantive review?" asks Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit that has been critical of the nuclear industry. "To have political appointees meddling in these technical decisions is just a recipe for confusion and chaos."
The extra review also has the possibility of working against the White House's goal of speeding reactor approval, adds Nordhaus. The commission already struggles to create new rules quickly, he says. "I'm not sure that sending [them] off to further review at OMB is going to expedite the timely and efficient licensing of reactors."
A Radioactive Order
The new review is a major change, but it is the draft executive order that promises a radical overhaul of the agency. According to the order, the NRC would look at repealing the Linear No Threshold standard for radiation safety. That standard presumes that radiation exposure can cause harm, even at levels where the harm is not easily detectable through scientific study. It also calls on the agency to review its standard requiring worker exposure be kept "as low as reasonably achievable."
Nordhaus, who has advocated for changing the standards, says reviewing them is not a bad idea. He says the NRC should set minimal radiation exposure levels it considers "safe". "As a matter of public policy, you need to set a threshold," he says.
But Macfarlane says the current standards are "accepted science." If they were removed, she says, there probably "would be political pressure to push up the exposure limitations."
The order would also call on the NRC to undergo a restructuring to speed licensing of new reactors. Along with that reorganization, the NRC would "undertake reductions in force."
It would also "undertake a wholesale revision of its regulations," working with DOGE and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
Both Lyman and Nordhaus say shrinking the NRC would be counterproductive. "If you go and lay off half the staff, you're going to lay off a bunch of the people you need to license new reactors in an expeditious fashion," Nordhaus says.
Ripping up the rulebook also won't help, adds Lyman. "It'll throw a monkey wrench in the works and it'll be completely counter to whatever this order is trying to achieve."
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