{"id":3377,"date":"2026-05-19T21:20:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T01:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3377"},"modified":"2026-05-19T21:20:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T01:20:53","slug":"are-trumps-nuclear-plans-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3377","title":{"rendered":"Are Trump\u2019s nuclear plans illegal?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The so-called \u201cRubber-Stamp Rule\u201d, an effort by the Trump administration to \u201cMake America Nuclear Again\u201d, violates key components of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and Energy Reorganization Act, according to comments filed<\/a> this week by 13 organizations including the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Beyond Nuclear. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission\u2019s (NRC) proposed rule will allow reactor designs that the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DOD) have approved to bypass required safety reviews by the NRC. <\/p>\n

In a separate comment filing in March, 11 state attorneys general concurred with the organizations\u2019 findings that the Department of Energy \u2018s new policy to exclude \u201cpilot reactors\u201d from both NRC licensing and environmental reviews violates existing law. In that case, the Department of Energy announced, in violation of federal law, that it would exempt previously untested reactors that it approves to be built and operated from any review of their environmental impacts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlong with the DOE\u2019s environmental \u2018free pass\u2019 policy, the whole \u2018expedited licensing\u2019 regime the administration is attempting to set up appears to be illegal,\u201d said Tim Judson, executive director of NIRS and co-author of comments filed to the NRC. \u201cThe White House is trying to create a \u2018regulatory tunnel\u2019 around NRC\u2019s safety regulations. That would mean DOE\u2019s biases and obviously false assumptions about the safety of nuclear power plants become the new normal, exposing the public to unacceptable dangers to our health and safety.\u201d <\/p>\n

The NRC\u2019s proposed regulation would allow companies that want to build a nuclear reactor of the same design as one DOE has previously approved to merely submit documentation of that approval and claim that the previously built reactor \u201cis safe.\u201d Such companies would likely never have to go through a detailed safety review by NRC to build and operate such reactors. In 1974, Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act to prohibit such a scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifty years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission was abolished because they became too much of a promoter and lost the confidence of Congress and the public over safety,\u201d said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear. \u201cThe NRC was established to provide a regulator that prioritizes safety and is obligated not to take shortcuts for a production agenda. Instead, half a century later, we are on the same dangerous collision course, casting aside the NRC in favor of the DOE, which doesn\u2019t have the experience or the staff to get the industry in line with safety and security. This capitulation to the Trump agenda could lead to the NRC being abolished altogether, because nobody will have confidence in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The groups also told NRC that it cannot simply \u201crubber-stamp\u201d reactors that the military builds, either. \u201cAnd while the law allows the DOD to build its own nuclear reactors,\u201d said Tim Judson of NIRS, \u201cit does not allow the NRC to skip safety reviews for civilian nuclear plants just because they use the same designs. The military routinely exposes its personnel to dangers that civilians are supposed to be protected from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn its eagerness to short-circuit reactor safeguards, the Trump administration is once again doing what it does best \u2013 demonstrating a complete disregard for the law,\u201d said Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear. \u201cBut nuclear technology is too inherently dangerous to operate as an outlaw. Ignoring those dangers will put millions of Americans at risk of another catastrophic nuclear accident.\u201d<\/p>\n