How the Trump Administration Is Reshaping Nuclear Oversight

The Trump administration has made nuclear power a centerpiece of its energy agenda, launching the most aggressive federal push for new reactors in decades. Through sweeping executive orders, new federal directives and financing support, and an $80 billion deal with Westinghouse, it aims to quadruple America’s nuclear capacity by mid-century and position the technology as a pillar of national security.

But the rapid expansion is testing the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency charged with ensuring that nuclear power is developed safely and free from political pressure. As the administration prioritizes speed, competitiveness, and national security, the NRC is being pushed to do more with fewer staff and to prioritize faster reactor approvals, raising concern that safety and the public trust it underpins could be compromised in the rush to build.

Former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane discusses what’s at stake for nuclear safety, regulation, and the future of U.S. nuclear power.

Full Transcript

Andy Stone: Welcome to the Energy Policy Now podcast, from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m Andy Stone. The Trump Administration has made nuclear power a key pillar of its energy strategy. On his first day in office, the President signed an order directing federal agencies to remove what he called unnecessary barriers to domestic energy production, including nuclear power. That early move set the tone for what’s become the most ambitious federal push for nuclear energy in decades.

In May, the administration rolled out a sweeping package of executive orders aimed at quadrupling America’s nuclear generating capacity by mid-century. The orders call for faster reactor licensing, expanded federal support for new construction, and streamlined reviews designed to cut project delays and costs. Around the same time, the administration gave the Departments of Energy and Defense broader authority to expedite certain nuclear projects, outside the tradition NRC-led process. Then in October came an $80 billion agreement with Westinghouse to build large reactors here in the US, and promote the technology abroad.

Taken together, these actions mark a dramatic shift, one that sees civilian nuclear energy not just as a clean power source, but as a cornerstone of American economic competitiveness, and of national security. But this rapid policy shift has also revived a longstanding question. What is the proper role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? The NRC is the independent agency responsible for insuring that nuclear power is developed safely, without political influence. For decades, that independence has been essential to maintaining public confidence in nuclear energy. Now, as pressure mounts to accelerate reactor approvals, that independence is being tested. Joining me to talk about the NRC’s mission and what it will take to safeguard nuclear safety and credibility in this new political environment, is Allison Macfarlane. Allison served as Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014, and is now Director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Allison, welcome back to the podcast.

Allison Macfarlane: Thank you very much.

Stone: You were on this podcast six years ago, to talk about the challenge of disposing of America’s nuclear waste. I haven’t followed it that closely, but I don’t know if there’s much to update on that front. Is there?

Macfarlane: Sadly, no.

Stone: Sadly, no. Okay. So, let’s go ahead and jump on into today’s conversation. And I want to start out here with a bit of discussion of the renewed interest in nuclear energy in this country. And what’s interesting is, we’re seeing demand not just from utilities, but also from the technology sector and heavy industry. Could you give us a big picture introduction? What’s driving this new wave of nuclear interest in the US?

Macfarlane: Well, that’s a big question to open with. There’s probably a number of factors driving interest. But that’s what it is right now. Let me be clear. It’s interest. There isn’t any actual new building of power reactors going on in the United States. There’s a lot of interest that’s been building for at least ten years, if not more, in small modular reactors, which don’t yet exist. And there is some interest in pursuing more large light water reactors. But there are many factors that can get in the way of this.

Stone: We are obviously seeing the interest from AI data centers, and that’s leading to the reopening of some shuttered nuclear plants. But the new interest in the new builds— and as you just said, there’s interest there but we’re not actually seeing any construction yet.

Macfarlane: No. It’s mostly talk. That’s really what it is. It’s— there’s a lot of hype. There’s no reality underpinning it yet.

Stone: So if and when we get these new reactor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, one would suppose would play a central role in approving and licensing those new reactors.

Macfarlane: Absolutely.

Stone: So that is really the focus of today’s describe, the NRC and its role as the industry regulator. Could you just start us out with a bit of history on the NRC’s primary role and responsibility? And when was it established, and in response to what specific need?

Macfarlane: Right. So, let’s start historically. Nuclear energy and nuclear weapons in this country were historically run by something called the Atomic Energy Commission. And so the Atomic Energy Commission, after starting in the 1940s with the nuclear bomb, started eventually making nuclear energy as well, and they were promoting nuclear energy but also regulating its use. And eventually, it became clear that you can’t both promote and regulate the same industry. That’s almost definitionally a conflict of interest. And so in 1975, the Atomic Energy Commission was disbanded. And in its place came the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which was responsible for the regulation of nuclear energy and nuclear materials in the US. And then what eventually became the Department of Energy, which is the promotional side also responsible for nuclear weapons as well as nuclear energy.

Stone: And when you say “promotion,” you say it means promoting the technology development, investing in the technology development, that type of thing. Right?

Macfarlane: Exactly. And then in terms of the NRC’s mission, it continues to be insuring public health and safety, and security, of nuclear facilities and nuclear materials used in commercial nuclear energy production, in medicine, in industry, in agriculture. And it’s a good mission.      

Stone: So independence has always been central to the NRC’s ability to fulfill its mission. And you described just a moment ago the separation of the promotional function from the regulatory function, which was the basis for the disbanding of the Atomic Energy Commission, and the establishment of the NRC, as you said, in 1975. And I want to ask you— so, why is that independence, then, so critical? And over its history, how has the NRC been insulated, I guess, in theory and in practice, from political pressures?

Macfarlane: The NRC— and let me just say that independent regulators, whether they regulate nuclear power on financial issues or elections or whatever— there are a number of independent regulators in the United States. The importance of an independent regulator, an independent regulator is free from both industry and political influence. And in the case of nuclear facilities and nuclear materials, it’s important for someone to be insuring that these facilities operate safely. We know what can happen if they don’t. We’ve seen the Fukushima accident, the Chernobyl accident, et cetera. And so it’s really important for the regulator to have the ability to shut down facilities that they don’t think are operating safely.

Stone: In terms of structurally, these are independent agencies. So that is where the independence and the independence from influence really comes from.

Macfarlane: Structurally, yes. So in terms of the nuclear regulatory commission, it is an agency of about 3000 people. It is operated at the top by a commission with five political appointees who are commissioners. And then there’s this permanent staff of about 3000 under them. And the commissioners have five-year appointments, and they’re rotated off regularly. And the political independence was in part maintained by making sure that two of the commissioners were Democrats, two were Republicans, and the chair of the commission was usually the party of the President.

Stone: It’s similar structure to the FERC, right? You’ve got two and three.

Macfarlane: Yes. Absolutely. Same structure. Most of the independent agencies have a similar structure in the US. And, you know, Congress and the White House have limited ability to interfere at all in the running of the commission, until now.

Stone: Before we get to that interference that you’ve just alluded to, I want to go a little bit more deeply into the history of nuclear power in this country, and the NRC’s role with it. And I think it helps to understand how that environment has changed, and maybe how that’s shaped the relationship  between the NRC and the industry that it regulates. As you’ve already mentioned, the civilian nuclear industry goes back to the ‘50s. It really got off the ground here in the ‘60s. And I think it took off, I guess you could say, in the 1970s, in terms of construction and the number of plants that are actually in operation. But it’s interesting. At the end of that same decade, the end of the 1970s, you see the industry facing a major inflection point. And that was Three Mile Island, the Three Mile Island accident here in Pennsylvania in 1979.

And I’ve seen graphs showing the cost and the time needed to build a nuclear power plant. Both increase quite dramatically around the time of Three Mile Island. It becomes that inflection point. To what extent did that event reshape expectations of or for the NRC? And I suppose there must have been a new wave of safety requirements and licensing requirements that came out of that. How did that impact the industry in terms of the public acceptance of nuclear power, as well as the industry’s ability to compete economically, which has become a greater issue over time?

Macfarlane: Three Mile Island was an incredibly significant accident, and it did significantly change the way that the industry was regulated, that the industry even regulated itself. As a result of that accident, the industry set up its own oversight organization. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did require a number of significant changes after any accident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission looks at that. That’s operational experience. And you take learnings away, and you make changes. And the US isn’t the only country that does this. Other countries do it as well. So everybody learned, from the Three Mile Island, a number of lessons which resulted in changes in how the regulator was regulating. But also in how the industry was operating.

And yes, the accident certainly resulted in a loss of public trust and support in nuclear power. And every accident thereafter has had the same effect. Certainly, we saw it most recently after the Fukushima accident in 2011. Support for nuclear power plummeted. It’s now, you know, come back up. But with another accident, the same will happen again.

Stone: I imagine there must have been, again, this increasing stringency around licensing, et cetera, going forward from that point. And again, one of the challenges that the industry has faced is being competitive on a cost basis with the options. Right? So back in the ‘80s, I would assume that would have been coal. In this century, over the last two decades in particular, we’ve seen natural gas become a dominant source of electricity generation in this country, as well as renewables. To what extent did the regulatory burden, if that’s the correct way to frame it, influence the cost structure of the industry?

Macfarlane: I don’t think it’s influenced it significantly. At the same time, when nuclear facilities are built, they require redundant safety systems to ensure that, for instance, in the case of loss of offsite power— so power from power lines into the plant— there’s a way to ensure that the reactors are kept cool and pumps are operated. Right? You need those safety systems. If you don’t have them, you will have an accident. And if your accident results in significant release of radioactivity, you won’t have any more nuclear power, because the public will lose faith in this form of electricity.

So you need safety systems that don’t exist in other forms of electricity production. And you need to build to a level of quality that doesn’t exist in other forms of electricity production. So this is different for the industry. Is it all the fault of the regulator? Absolutely not. If the industry does not do these things, and they have an accident, they will all suffer. The old saying in nuclear power is, “An accident anywhere is an accident everywhere.”

Stone: On May 23^rd of this year, President Trump issued four executive orders on the nuclear industry, with the stated goal of quadrupling US nuclear energy capacity by mid-century. And we’re not going to go into the details of those orders. They’ve been written about ad nauseum. But one of the orders gives the NRC 18 months to perform a comprehensive updating of its rules for nuclear power plant licensing. And under those updated rules, which I believe will be finalized some time probably in the second half of 2026, the NRC must complete the approval process for new nuclear plant applications also within 18 months of submission. So my question for you is this. Is the NRC built to work on this sort of schedule? And can safety be assured under it?

Macfarlane: I would respond by pointing out that those executive orders also were designed to reduce the number of staff at the NRC. So basically, they’re saying, “Do more with less.” So that’s something to note as well.

Stone: And do it more quickly, I presume?

Macfarlane: Yeah. So, you try that at home. The issue here is this. This is a misguided order, because when the nuclear regulatory commission considers a license application for whatever it is, whether it’s a new nuclear power plant, or a uranium-leaching facility, or a nuclear waste storage facility, the onus is on the applicant to put together a high-quality application. And then to be prepared to answer questions quickly, and with high-quality answers. So it’s not the nuclear regulatory commission that moves slowly. It is the applicant that moves slowly. And so I can give you some real-life examples of this. So let me give you an example of a good applicant, and how quickly things can move.

I’ll give you two examples. The Nuclear Navy always passes its designs for its nuclear reactors for its aircraft carriers and its submarines through the NRC licensing process, to be sure that they’ve designed something safe. And the last one they did, which was a nuclear reactor to power an airport carrier, they submitted a high-quality application. They answered questions quickly, with high-quality answers. And they got their license in 18 months. So, yes, it’s possible to do it in 18 months.

A small modular reactor designer, a company called Kairos, submitted a license application to build a demonstration facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and they submitted a high-quality application. They answered questions quickly, in a timely fashion, with high-quality answers. And they got their license in about two years. So they are actually constructing a demonstration facility there.

Oklo, a company that is very highly valued on the stock market, submitted a license application and it turned out to be a poor-quality license application, to the nuclear regulatory committee. They were asked a number of questions. They referred back to their license, instead of developing answers that actually directly addressed the questions of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And sometimes they didn’t answer it all. This dragged on for a few years, and then the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did what it almost never does. It rejected Oklo’s application because it wasn’t responding. And frankly, it had chosen the wrong regulatory pathway.

So that’s an example of the applicant falling down on the job. So there’s an assumption in those executive orders that every application that comes in should just be granted. And that does not meet the mission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is trying to ensure public health and safety.

Stone: So assuming that those applications are high quality, then, historically, the NRC has had the percent to process those applications and issue its decision in a very timely fashion, it sounds like.

Macfarlane: Yes.

Stone: And now, as you’ve pointed out, we have a reduction in personnel at the NRC, and also, I would imagine, probably an acceleration in the number of licensing applications due to the fact that there are quite a number of SMR companies out there at this point. And also, due to some other deals we’ll talk about in a little bit, for some new, larger reactors that will be coming down the pike, presumably, over the next few years. So you’ve got less manpower, and you presumably have more workload, it sounds.

Macfarlane: Yeah. I don’t know that more workload has quite appeared yet. But that is the expectation.

Stone: Yes. It sounds like it’s in the expectation. The executive orders also do something interesting as well. They give the Departments of Energy and Defense expanded authority to review and approve certain reactors. And in that, they would bypass the NRC and its licensing process. To what extent is this an expansion of the DOE’s existing nuclear permitting authority, and to what end? And is DOE equipped to take on this role that I had thought was the NRC’s?

Macfarlane: No.

Stone: Okay. All right. That’s the short answer.

Macfarlane: They do not have the technical expertise. I mean, as I said earlier, the NRC has 3000 staff. Many of them are technical experts in very different aspects of reactor safety, reactor performance, reactor behavior. At the front end, the fuel supply. At the back end, the spent fuel. And the Department of Energy doesn’t have that kind of staffing. They don’t have those kinds of capabilities. They are not a regulator. They are a promoter. They promote the industry. They do not regulate it. This is out of their swing lane.

Stone: As I understand, the Department of Defense will also be seeking to establish reactors on its military bases. I think the first demonstration is targeted for 2028, and it would also be looking to the DOE to approve those reactors, not the NRC.

Macfarlane: As I said, the Department of Defense has a long history of working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Navy. There’s long relationships established there. So this is moving in a different direction.

Stone: This is starting to sound a little bit like a laundry list, but I just want to point out a few other things that are happening with the NRC at this point, just to give us more framing. You, in an early conversation, have noted the DOGEing, the Department of Government Efficiency’s influence in the NRC. DOGE is overseeing the reorganization of the NRC, its staffing reductions, and it’s been involved in refocusing the commission specifically on new reactor licensing and new technologies. The NRC is also being required to minimize the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, the ACRS, to its statutory personnel minimum. What is that body, and what is the implication of that?

Macfarlane: Again, the implication is quite negative in terms of public health and safety. The ACRS was established by law to be an independent technical check on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And so it’s a group of eminent experts who serve for a period of time and then move on, who look at new reactor designs and ask questions. And look at the NRC’s analysis of these designs and their safety. And it results in safer reactors for everyone in the United States. If you remove and diminish the ACRS, you are harming safety.

Stone: A few moments ago, you mentioned a company called Oklo, which is a young SMR technology company looking to build its own design of reactors. And you were recently quoted in an article in Bloomberg at the end of October. The article went into depth about the startup company, and noted that it is pursuing a path for certification also that would circumvent the NRC’s oversight. So we’re seeing this pattern here. We’re seeing an attempt to refocus the NRC from the administration itself. But we’re also seeing these very active efforts on behalf  of players in the industry to also bypass, circumvent, minimize the NRC’s role. What is driving the effort by the nuclear startups to work around the NRC?

Macfarlane: I don’t know. I would only have to speculate. But all I can say and observe is that if you have to avoid regulatory review of your reactor design, maybe there’s something wrong with your reactor design. I think the example of Kairos is a very strong one. They were very confident of their reactor design, and they clearly put together a good license application. And they received a license to construct. And so they’re constructing. I don’t understand why everyone else needs a free pass. And that’s basically what this is asking for. It’s a free pass. If your reactor design  is that robust, and that safe, and you know enough about it, then just follow the regular route. Why not?

Stone: Per the orders from the administration in May, the DOE has been instructed to provide 20 tons of enriched uranium to several SMR developers. You’ve been highly critical of this. What particular concerns does this raise?

Macfarlane: It raises a number of concerns. Many of these reactors with— I’m going to put it in quotes, “advanced designs” — they’re non-light water designs. And I should say for your listenership that all of the operating nuclear reactors in the US are light water reactors. That means they’re cooled and moderated by regular water. But these advanced designs use exotic fuels and exotic coolants. And most of them require fuel that has more enrichment in uranium-235 than the light water reactors. So they require that HALEU— that high assay, low enriched uranium fuel. Now, nobody except the Russians produce that higher-enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power use. And so there’s a dearth of it. And so that’s part of the reason for that requirement for the US government to produce this and give it to these reactor designers.

The implications of this fuel are multiple, this more enriched fuel. Firstly, somebody is going to have to build a facility that will work, and produce this higher-enriched uranium on a regular basis. But to do that, you have to ensure that you will actually be able to sell it to clients and so you need to know that there are clients who will want this. And you have a chicken-and-egg problem. So that’s one issue.

Another issue is, then you still have to fabricate the fuel. And those facilities do not exist, to make exotic fuels using this more highly-enriched uranium. And then there’s another issue, which is that this HALEU fuel poses a risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, and needs to be more closely safeguarded and more highly secured than regular light water reactor fuel.

Stone: So this is low-grade weapons-grade uranium, is that essentially what it is?

Macfarlane: Weapons-grade uranium, that cut-off is 25 percent uranium-235. But the range between ten and 20 percent is still possible to use in a nuclear weapon. And there have been a number of articles recently that have been raising this issue and pointing to concerns. An article most recently in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists pointed to concerns raised by the US government a number of decades ago about HALEU fuel.

Stone: As I mentioned a little earlier, in October, just about a month or so ago, the administration reached an $80 billion deal with the owners of Westinghouse Electric. And Westinghouse is the company that designed and built the AP-1000 reactors that were most recently used in the two Vogtle nuclear power plants in Georgia that were opened in 2023 and 2024. So that’s a deal with Westinghouse Electric, who are the owners of it, to build eight of these reactors in the United States, and to promote the technology abroad. I think you may have already hit this, but I want to go back to it. At this point, do you see a market for large reactors like the AP-1000 here in the US? And I have to say, the recent experience has been long build time frames, pretty extreme cost overruns. There may have been lessons learned from the Vogtle experience. But are these types of reactors practical in this country, or as we’re looking at SMRs, are they going to be supplanting these large light water reactor designs? What’s your view on that?

Macfarlane: Yes, there’s a role for large light water reactors in the US. The AP-1000 design is a fine design. It does have a few problems, but it’s mostly a fine reactor design. But as you pointed out, the cost overruns were massive. The two reactors that started in 2023 and 2024 in Georgia, the AP-1000s there, were originally supposed to cost $14 billion for two of them. They cost, in the end, $36 billion. So, more than doubling of the cost. So it’s maybe optimistic to be saying that you would get eight reactors out of $80 billion. Maybe you’d get four. And one has to ask the question, is it worth that money and the time that it would take to get these things going? Are there other options for electricity sources that are cheaper and faster to build and faster to bring online?

The question about, would SMRs replace these— I think the answer is going to be, no. And the reason is this. Economies of scale. The reason we have only large reactors is because of economies of scale. It is simply cheaper to build one large reactor pressure vessel, than five small ones. And that’s why we have large reactors. And trying to escape the bounds of economies of scale by appealing to, say, factory production, is not going to work, I don’t think. And I say that because we’ve had experience with factory production of reactors. The AP-1000s that were just built in Georgia. They were built as modules that were plugged into each other like Legos. And those modules were built at a factory in Louisiana. That factory had three different owners, and they had continual problems that each successive owner inherited. The final owner was Westinghouse. Westinghouse went bankrupt, in part because of this.

And they couldn’t get certain things right. For example, they couldn’t do nuclear-quality welding. And this went on for years. So long that the Georgia reactor facility had to build their own re-welding plant. So these modules would be shipped to Georgia, and they would have to be rewelded to nuclear-quality welds, before they could be used.

Stone: That sounds incredibly expensive.

Macfarlane: Exactly. That’s where the cost overruns and the schedule lags come from. And so I don’t see anybody in the SMR industry looking at the problems that happened at this factory and saying, “Oh, this is how we’re gonna fix them.” They all just seem to be appealing to the idea of a factory, and how easy it’s going to be. And I should point out that many of the folks in the SMR industry don’t have actual experience at operating nuclear reactors. And so they’re not familiars with some of the real challenges in producing electricity from a nuclear power plant.

Stone: I want to take that a step further, what you just mentioned. The manpower, the knowledge of the industry. In this country in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when so many nuclear power plants that we have today were being built, there was a well-established workforce. And I would also imagine a well-established supply chain for the building of new reactors. We are in a very different environment today, where I don’t believe we have the manpower or experience any longer to make that happen. What is the state of the nuclear supply chain, as well as the current state of manpower in this country, the workforce? Do we have the people to build, for example, this ambitious goal of eight large AP-1000 reactors? Let alone the SMRs.

Macfarlane: I mean, it will take time to ramp up. It’s always possible to develop the manpower. Training is clearly really important. An understanding of nuclear quality. Nuclear is not the same as a natural gas plant, for instance. So it’s possible to get there. And certainly, within  the existing industry, there’s adequate manpower and supply chains. But for new reactor designs, the supply chains are absolutely not established, especially for those using exotic fuels and exotic coolants. And so that’s a real challenge. And one that’s been largely ignored.

And, you know, in the nuclear industry, there’s a discussion of first of a kind, and then “nth” of a kind plants. And the understanding is always that the first of a kind plants are slow to build and very expensive. And then hopefully, after you built a lot, it gets faster and cheaper. And it does, to some degree. But even faster and cheaper is not that faster and cheaper, certainly compared to other forms of electricity. So these are issues that will remain for nuclear power.

Stone: I’m thinking here about these SMRs, and the promise of them. That they can be modular, it will be easy to put together once they’re off the assembly line. I just want to ask this, throw it out there. Is it possible that they are much simpler to put in place, to install and do the final assembly on? So, the extent of manpower and skilled workforce that’s needed to put up a very complex AP-1000 may not apply in the case of the SMRs?

Macfarlane: You may not need the extent of the workforce, compared to putting up a big 1000 megawatt plant. But they’re not going to be simple. And I think history has shown that. Especially with some of these exotic designs. So, for example, the sodium-cooled fast reactor designed, which is the TerraPower Natrium Plant that is being considered for Wyoming, and Okro’s design, for instance. Eight countries have built 25 different versions of a sodium-cooled fast reactor, over 70 years, and spent $100 billion doing it. And none of them have been able to produce electricity economically reliably.

Stone: And these SMR designs you just mentioned, they are that technology, right?

Macfarlane: Those two, yes. They are the sodium-cooled fast reactor designs. So we know that there are significant challenges with some of these designs.

Stone: I’m curious about one other aspect of this Westinghouse deal. And beyond building the plants domestically, there is also an effort in there, or it’s part of the effort, to promote US reactor technology globally. I think also talking about the context of the AP-1000 here. And from what I understand, Russia and China have been quite aggressive and successful in marketing their nuclear plant technologies and designs on a global basis. There’s something I ran across where Russia is building, basically, a turnkey reactor in Turkey, where they’re handling everything that’s involved. And Turkey’s just going to have this plant built for it. Can the United States, with its technologies, with its cost structures, whatever it may be, compete? Are we well behind, again, China and Russia, in developing our role in this global market for reactors?

Macfarlane: Let me be clear that China has not been selling reactors all over the world.

Stone: Has not been. Okay, thank you.

Macfarlane: No. Russia has, to a few countries that, honestly, don’t have a lot of experience or have no experience with nuclear power. And you mentioned the Turkey plant. Yes, they have built the plant. They will operate the plant.

Stone: The Russians, you mean.

Macfarlane: The Russians will operate the plant. And the Turkish people will pay for their electricity at a rate set by the Russians. This model doesn’t supply a lot of energy security for a country, because it makes the country entirely dependent on Russia and Russia’s good will. And so it may not be appealing to many countries. The US has never offered that kind of model, so I don’t see that changing.

Stone: I want to bring up a final issue regarding the Westinghouse deal. And in it, the US government— per what’s been written about, the agreement— the US government will receive 20 percent of profits from the operation of the plant after the owners have been paid a determined amount. The government would also benefit from an IPO of Westinghouse, if and when that happens. And this brings up something that you’ve mentioned before. It looks a lot like a conflict of interest. The government is becoming a strategic financial partner in the reactors it will license. In the simplest terms, it stands to benefit financially from the licensing. To what extent do you see this as concerning? This recalls going back to the 1970s when the NRC was formed, and why it was formed.

Macfarlane: Actually, I don’t see it the same way. In France, they have a regulator and the EDF is a nationalized company that operates the plants. And Orono is a nationalized company that builds the plants. So it’s possible to do that. But they have a regulator that’s independent. So you need an independent regulator, if you want this to work. And now, under President Trump, we no longer have one.

Stone: The nuclear industry has been framed as very central— and I think rightfully so— to the competitiveness and even the national security of the United States. For example, where you see nuclear energy potentially being used to power AI data centers, it provides that reliable energy that those centers would need. So the question I have for you to finish up here is, is there a way for the NRC to adapt to an environment where we’re going to see pressure for faster reactor deployment while maintaining safety as the top priority?

Macfarlane: The NRC can adapt in many ways. But what it can’t do, is it can’t be gutted in terms of its staff and in terms of its independence. If it’s not an independent regulator, then it can’t do the job that it needs to do to keep the public safe. And that, I think, is what is at stake here. And we’ll see what happens in the next few years, as things progress.

Stone: Allison, thank you very much for talking.

Macfarlane: You’re welcome.