Streamline nuclear regulatory requirements and the licensing process

Research notes

Instrument: NRC rulemakings under EO 14300 and the ADVANCE Act, searched by agency and docket rather than by the Mandate’s phrase.

On the DOE side, the Office of Nuclear Energy reports that it revised its reactor authorization process in 2025 and stood up a Reactor Pilot Program, with five DOE-authorized reactors reaching criticality by August 2026.

Still proposed when last checked: Modernizing Reactor Licensing, Safety Oversight, and Siting Practices (16 July 2026); Reforming and Modernizing the NRC’s Radiation Protection Framework (15 July 2026); Implementation of NEPA (7 July 2026); Licensing Requirements for Microreactors (1 May 2026).

Added to that list on 2026-09-27: Regulatory Enhancements for Reactor Licensing, Decommissioning, and Operational Oversight (proposed rule, FR 2026-19568, 91 FR 60702, 2026-09-24, RIN 3150-AL45). By its own summary it is “one effort in the NRC’s activities to address the direction in section 5 of Executive Order 14300”, part of the same wholesale revision. We read it on 2026-09-27. Its fifteen major provisions cover Part 21, event reporting, decommissioning (an “upfront” license termination plan in place of the PSDAR), decommissioning trust funds, risk-informed seismic design, PRA, backfitting and issue finality, fuel-load notice, standard design approvals, environmental reviews of early site permits, post-TMI requirements, operator licensing, IAEA notices and records. The “license renewal” it would eliminate is the six-year renewal of operators’ licenses under Part 55, not reactor license extensions, so #1039 is not reached. It sets no review timeline for combined licenses or early site permits, so #1038 is not reached either. A proposal adds no rung to an item already at partial on final rules, so there is no event.

Reviewed 2026-10-04, from the abstracts only (our automated search had not linked these to this item): the NRC published Exemptions From Materials Licensing on 2026-10-05, as a final rule (FR 2026-20336) and a companion proposed rule (FR 2026-20335). Paired same-day documents are the usual direct-final-rule form. The rule expands license-exempt uses of byproduct, source and special nuclear material, is “deregulatory in nature”, and is described as “consistent with several Executive orders”. That is materials licensing, not reactor licensing. The Quote’s own example is reactors (“advanced nuclear reactors (including small modular nuclear reactors)”), but its first sentence reaches “nuclear regulatory requirements” generally. The rule is one more final rule in the class the 2026-03-30 partial event already describes, so it adds no rung and no event. Whether it names EO 14300 is in the preamble, which was not read.