Executive Order 14301 — Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy
PublishedThis document exists and is available in full.
- Issued by
- The President of the United States
- Type
- Order
- Document date
- Version
- 1.0
Source verified
About test reactors, which are built to prove a design works rather than to sell power. It moves them under the Department of Energy instead of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Signed May 23, 2025, and published at 90 FR 22591.
It defines a “qualified test reactor” as one that could be running within two years of a complete application, and tells the Department to rewrite its own procedures so that can actually happen at a federal site. It also sets up a pilot program for test reactors built outside the national laboratories, with a goal of three reaching criticality by July 4, 2026.
Underneath sits a legal finding: a reactor built under Department of Energy control that sells no commercial electricity counts as research, so it falls to the Department rather than the NRC. That is why a test reactor can move on this schedule when a commercial one cannot.
Nothing here changes the route for a reactor that sells power. Those still go through the NRC.