Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act
(S. 1757)
(S. 1757)
05/14/2025
The Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act will improve the NRC's efficiency in reviewing new nuclear reactor applications. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the NRC is required to hold a hearing on every reactor license application with the NRC Commissioners, NRC staff members and license applicants. During the review, members of the public have an opportunity to petition the Commission to intervene and contest the application. However, in many cases, these hearings are uncontroversial and uncontested, but still required by law to happen. Recent examples of these “uncontested mandatory hearings” are estimated to require upwards of 1,500 hours of preparation by NRC staff, have cost the applicant anywhere between thousands and millions of dollars, and have delayed the application approval for at least six months. Removing the statutory requirement to hold this specific type of hearing is a promising opportunity to enact meaningful bipartisan legislation that helps level the playing field for the advanced nuclear industry, accelerating innovation through the licensing process.
The requirement for a public hearing at the end of the licensing process, regardless of whether the license is uncontested, began before the NRC even existed. Until 1974, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) regulated nuclear energy, which had the dual mandate of regulating and promoting nuclear energy. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 split these mandates between the NRC and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which was later merged with the Federal Energy Administration to form the Department of Energy (DOE).
The original justification for an uncontested mandatory hearing was based on the lack of public engagement on proposed reactor siting decisions by the AEC in the early 1960s. Today, a reactor application has significant opportunities for public engagement: the NRC holds public meetings on every aspect of the safety and environmental reviews and publishes documents related to the review on its website. Furthermore, the public still has an opportunity to petition to intervene (i.e., contest a hearing). Thus, the uncontested mandatory hearing has become redundant and slows the deployment of new nuclear, especially as the number of applications before the NRC begins to increase. Removing this duplicative step in the process is an exciting opportunity for innovation.
The Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act improves the speed at which the NRC can license advanced reactors without limiting opportunities for public engagement by removing the requirement for a Commission hearing on a reactor license application and enrichment facilities if the hearing is uncontested.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE)
ClearPath Action