The pace of undermining the statutory authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to serve as the cornerstone of nuclear safety in the United States and across the world is accelerating.
The recent directive by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff member Adam Blake to NRC staff to “rubber stamp” Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DOD) nuclear projects highlights how far and fundamentally these cracks have advanced in the pillars of nuclear safety culture within the federal government.
There is a saying: “Nuclear power is not inherently unsafe, but nuclear power is inherently unforgiving.” The implication is clear: Inattention to safety details has significant consequences. These concerns led Congress to wisely separate the original Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) into two agencies with constructive tensions. One is the DOE, which studies and promotes multiple forms of energy, including nuclear power. The other is the NRC, with the function of nuclear safety above all else.
During the 70-plus-year experiment with nuclear power, “defense in depth” safety margins have prevented nuclear accidents from the mundane to the catastrophic. Yet we have also seen numerous near misses, such as Browns Ferry (1975) and Three Mile Island (1979), and tragic failures at Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011).
With the advent of lower-cost hydraulically fractured fossil gas burned in combined cycle turbines and low-cost renewable wind, solar and storage, nuclear power no longer is a low-cost provider. New nuclear projects also failed to stay on budget and on schedule.
The past three nuclear reactors to come online, all in the nuclear-friendly southeastern U.S., highlight the failures. TVA’s Watts Bar 2 was over 40 years behind schedule and cost $6.1 billion, while Georgia Power’s Vogtle 3 and 4 were seven years delayed and $21 billion over budget. While thoughtful utility managers have moved away from nuclear power to embrace less risky, more predictable, and less complex energy solutions, nuclear zealots have sought to blame “over-regulation” and “government bureaucracy” for problems inherent in nuclear technology itself.
Over the past decade, the NRC has become the favorite whipping boy of zealots beholden to a stagnant industry. Industry lobbyists have persistently chipped away at the structural pillars of safety and independence at the NRC while justifying the restructuring — i.e., weakening — of the NRC as needed for nuclear power’s survival.
The Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA) of 2017, Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) of 2019, and Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act (ADVANCE Act) of 2024 have all been the hammers and chisels in the legislative toolbox. These moved with bipartisan support, further eroding safety and the NRC’s independence.
The ADVANCE Act proved particularly damaging, as it required the NRC to alter its mission statement to ensure licensing “does not unnecessarily limit the benefits of civilian use of radioactive materials and nuclear energy technology to society.” This represents a fundamental departure from the agency’s safety-first mandate, introducing promotional language that echoes the very conflicts of interest that led to the AEC’s dissolution in 1974.
Former NRC commissioners have sounded the alarm about these dangerous trends. “An independent regulator is one who is free from industry and political influence,” warned Allison Macfarlane, who served as NRC chair under President Obama. “Once you insert the White House into the process, you don’t have an independent regulator anymore.” Three former NRC chairs jointly warned that recent changes “serve to weaken protections for those who work in or live near reactors.”
The irony is profound: Just as the nuclear industry seeks to expand deployment of advanced reactor designs — technologies that are largely unproven and require more rigorous safety review, not less — the regulatory framework is being systematically weakened. These new reactor designs, from small modular reactors to advanced fast reactors, represent significant departures from existing light-water reactor technology. They require intensive safety analysis precisely because they lack the decades of operational experience that inform current safety protocols.
This regulatory erosion threatens to undermine the very public confidence the nuclear industry desperately needs to expand. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that the Trump administration’s approach could “take talent and resources away from oversight and inspections and put them into licensing,” calling the strategy “totally misdirected.”
The potential consequences extend beyond U.S. borders, as former NRC officials noted: “If it becomes clear that the NRC has been forced to cut corners on safety and operate less transparently, U.S. reactor vendors will be hurt” internationally, since “a design licensed in the United States now carries a stamp of approval that can facilitate licensing elsewhere.”
As an unbridled Trump returned to the White House pontificating about a “golden era” and “energy dominance in America,” the die was cast for the NRC. DOGE staff infested the NRC and DOE, Trump’s May nuclear executive orders solidified the collapse of the NRC’s safety role and independence, and Adam Blake’s “rubber stamp” comment was just the silent part said out loud. The structural pillars that have protected Americans from nuclear accidents for five decades are cracking under the weight of industry pressure and political interference.
The ultimate tragedy is that weakening safety oversight precisely when unproven reactor technologies need the most rigorous review sets the stage for the kind of serious accident that could devastate public confidence in nuclear power for generations — the very outcome the industry claims to want to avoid.
Stephen A. Smith is executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
