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Title: Trump Launches Reform of Nuclear Industry, Slashes Regulation

Link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/05/23/...

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a press release from the White House,
outlining a series of executive orders that overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and speed up deployment of new nuclear power reactions in the
U.S.. From a report: The NRC is a 50-year-old, independent agency that
regulates the nation's fleet of nuclear reactors. Trump's orders call for a
"total and complete reform" of the agency, a senior White House official told
reporters in a briefing. Under the new rules, the commission will be forced
to decide on nuclear reactor licenses within 18 months. Trump said Friday the
orders focus on small, advanced reactors that are viewed by many in the
industry as the future. But the president also said his administration
supports building large plants. "We're also talking about the big plants --
the very, very big, the biggest," Trump said. "We're going to be doing them
also." When asked whether NRC reform will result in staff reductions, the
White House official said "there will be turnover and changes in roles."
"Total reduction in staff is undetermined at this point, but the executive
orders do call for a substantial reorganization" of the agency, the official
said. The orders, however, will not remove or replace any of the five
commissioners who lead the body, according to the White House. Any reduction
in staff at the NRC would come at time when the commission faces a heavy
workload. The agency is currently reviewing whether two mothballed nuclear
plants, Palisades in Michigan and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, should
restart operations, a historic and unprecedented process. [...] Trump's
orders also create a regulatory framework for the Departments of Energy and
Defense to build nuclear reactors on federal land, the administration
official said. "This allows for safe and reliable nuclear energy to power and
operate critical defense facilities and AI data centers," the official told
reporters. The NRC will not have a direct role, as the departments will use
separate authorities under their control to authorize reactor construction
for national security purposes, the official said. The president's orders
also aim to jump start the mining of uranium in the U.S. and expand domestic
uranium enrichment capacity, the official said. Trump's actions also aim to
speed up reactor testing at the Department of Energy's national laboratories.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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