Executive Order 14300 — Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Orders the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that licenses reactors, to reorganize itself and rewrite its rules. Signed May 23, 2025, and published at 90 FR 22587.

The deadlines are the heart of it. The NRC must build into its rules a limit of 18 months to decide whether a new reactor of any type may be built and operated, and one year to decide whether an existing one may keep running. The order also tells the agency to cut staff as part of the reorganization, to create a fast route for licensing small and microreactors in volume, and to aim at growing American nuclear capacity from about 100 gigawatts in 2024 to 400 by 2050.

One part is contested. The order tells the NRC to reconsider the model it uses for radiation exposure, the one that assumes any dose carries some risk, and says that model lacks a sound scientific basis. That is the order’s judgment, not a settled finding. Scientists genuinely disagree about it, and this site takes no position. The row is here so you can read the claim where it was made.

By itself the order changes no NRC rule. It tells the NRC to propose changes, and the agency’s own rulemaking is where they would actually happen.